The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say I love you.

I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.

I felt suddenly shy. I was not used to shy. I was used to shame. Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.

Years were passing through the spaces between moments.

She wanted nothing more than someone to miss, to touch, with whom to speak like a child, with whom to be a child.

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.

[...]It is as if after surviving so much, there was no longer reason to survive.