She shouldn't leave you. Or you shouldn't leave her. I haven't worked it out yet. But you shouldn't be apart.

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?

He leaned upon her as if there was no other support anywhere in the world, and she held him as if she would undertake no other task for all eternity.

Yes, Jenna, I love you with all my heart. And with my atoms and molecules and electrons and whatever further breakdown you require.

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

If mankind's greatest achievement is to produce more spaces for mankind to live in, I do not think I am so impressed.

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.