Feeling special is the worst kind of cage a person can build for himself.

The love of those we don't love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.

[Their love] had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent.

but his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them

Mattia was right: the days had slipped over her skin like a solvent, one after the other, each removing a very thin layer of pigment from her tattoo, and from both of their memories. The outlines, like the circumstances, were still there, black and well delineated, but the colors had merged together until they faded into a dull, uniform tonality, a neutral absence of meaning.

Even though he was afraid to admit it, when he was with her it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.

All Mattia saw was a shadow moving toward him. He instinctively closed his eyes and then felt Alice’s hot mouth on his, her tears on his cheek, or maybe they weren’t hers, and finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.