Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.

No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.

When microorganisms die, they make oil; when huge timbers fall, they make coal. But everything here was pure, unadulterated rubbish that didn't make anything. Where does a busted videodeck get you?

Wherever there's hope there's a trial.

I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.

I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.

The rain that fell on the city runs down the dark gutters and empties into the sea without even soaking the ground