And of course the word love has many shades of meaning, as do many, many of the words in our living, breathing language

It was strange how the heart clung to hope even when there was no reasonable basis for it, Morgan found. And how life went on.

Have you noticed," she asked him, "how we live much of our lives in the past and most of the rest of it in the future? Have you noticed how often the present moment slips by quiet unnoticed?

I can be hurt, she said, only by people I respect.

Love does not last forever, then?" "He asked me the same thing this morning," she said. "No, it does not - not love that has been betrayed. One realizes that one has loved a mirage, someone who never really existed. Not that love dies immediately or soon, even then. But it does die and cannot be revived.

But only a person in the depths of despair neglected to look beyond winter to the spring that inevitably followed, bringing back color and life and hope.

I do beg you to have some regard for my pride. A million years? I assure you I would stop asking after the first thousand.