And you're not leaving," she said. "Promise me." It was as if she had asked him to promise to keep breathing, to notice sunshine, to permit the spinning of the earth. What choice did he have? Even if he left her, she would be camped in his heart, an insistent and willful presence. She would match her strides to his on any journey he ever took; she would lie beside him on any bed. Amalie, he said, "that's the easiest promise I've ever had to make.

I was Amazement--I was Desire--I was Ecstasy and Rapture and the slightest bit of Greed.

You have not traveled enough," she said. "Or you'd know that every journey makes its own map across your heart.

And might I live long enough to see the world yet again as a place completely different, through eyes that see another truth not yet revealed?

We cannot go backward. We cannot erase time and events. But we can go forward, hand in hand, hope in our hearts and love lighting our way.

I realized a long time ago, with a certain amazement, that no mattter how important something is in your life, no matter how huge it is, how much space it takes up in your heart and in your thoughts, unless you mention it to other people, they have no idea it exists.

Love is a popular romantic notion that leads to nothing but its own brand of misery.