My love for you is elemental and immutable, and it will sustain me until I die.

Are you asking me if there is a god?' he said, still in that soft voice. 'All I can say is, I believe there is. I feel him when I sing. He has responded to my prayers countless times. He guides my actions and he dwells in my heart. I know he is there.

And if I should leave you, for any reason," he added, tightening his grip as she struggled to free her hand, "I will return to you. That is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning and the thunderbolt falling tomorrow night. That is as sure as the god's existence. I will come back to you, or I will find you - over and over again, as often as we are parted, until the end of the world itself.

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?

Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment.

If love makes you sad, you acquire a little depth, a little compassion. If it makes you happy, you learn how to be joyous. Every relationship should color your soul to a certain degree, don't you think? Every friendship, every love affair - each one should build up the chambers of your heart the way a sea creature builds the chamber of his shell.