One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

He knows that the only way he can accept losing her is if he can continue to hold her or be held by her. If they can somehow nurse each other out of this. Not with a wall.

I promised to tell you how one falls in love.

But we were interested in how our lives could mean something to the past. We sailed into the past.

There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own.

All I ever wanted was a world without maps.

Nowadays he doesn't think of his wife, though he knows he can turn around and evoke every move of her, describe any aspect of her, the weigh of her wrist on his heart during the night.