He actually listened, rather than pretending to listen while waiting a suitable interval before it was his time to talk again.

...they cupped their wings around their happiness and called it a world, though they both knew it was not a world, only a hiding place, which is a very different thing.

A thousand things might have stopped me from being here right now, but instead, a thousand things brought me here.

To a new generation of butterflies, hopefully less stupid than last. Maybe they were burgeoning even now in fat little cocoons. Or maybe not.

Cats and ghosts both partook of the saucers of milk and that was okay. They consumed different parts of it: the cats its substance, the ghosts its essence, and none went to waste.

Some would assert that Providence was at work shaking out its pockets in Humanity's lap. Other would argue for that mindless choreographer, Chance. Either way it was a simple thing: a lost diary fell into the hands of a soul-sick war hero on a train from Bombay to Jaipur just when he'd grown tired of the scenery and needed something to keep his thoughts from the minefield of his wretched thoughts. In such mild ways is the groundwork laid for first kisses and ruined lives.

There are other ways of showing someone you love them, such as fetching them out of Hell.