There is certainly a satisfaction and dignity to be gained in coming to terms with the mistakes one has made in the course of one’s life

What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.

I wouldn't want to try to adapt something of my own. It would be like going back to school and doing all my exams again.

And what made these heart-to-hearts possible--you might even say what made the whole friendship possible during that time--was this understanding we had that anything we told each other during these moments would be treated with careful respect: that we'd honor confidences, and that no matter how much we rowed, we wouldn't use against each other anything we'd talked about during those sessions.

We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they're capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don't care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they've done wrong.

And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it's probably because I'm looking at them in the light of what came later.

Love isn't about when you first meet. It's about the many, many years you spend together, when you're trying to keep that flame burning.