More and more I find myself at a loss for words and didn't want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.

This was my one brush with love. Was it love? It felt awful enough. I spent another two years crawling around in the skin of it, smoking too much and growing too thin and having stray thoughts of jumping from my balcony like a tortured heroine in a Russian novel.

The way I see it, how can you really say you'll love a person longer than love lasts?

I hope we'll get lucky enough to grow old together.

I'd never met anyone so vibrant or alive. He moved like light.

... and yet he could also be very charming, in a bookish, infinitely apologetic way.

More and more I find myself at a loss for words and didn't want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.