People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

You can fall ill with just a memory.

She hadn't chosen him over all the others. The truth was that she hadn't even thought about anyone else.

Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other.

They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time.

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

All opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don't have to come up with anything new, there's no point, because you're both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it's only at that point that you need a strategy.