The present grows within the boundaries of the past.

When I was in my early twenties, I fell in love at least 20 times a day. You have to be with someone where you think: if the world was full of people like you, I could not be monogamous. As you get older, you get to know yourself a little more. The older you get, the more you realize what you need. And you also realize how your choice in relationships is influenced by how you grew up. Now I feel like I've explored the dynamic of how I grew up, and I'm free to find someone who's really going to be a wonderful companion.

Relationships break down, because it's about self. But when you take the "I" out of it and you're like, how can I make them happy, that means sacrifice. I think you have to be prepared to sacrifice, and a lot of people just aren't willing to. You have to give up a piece of yourself. By doing that, you get a greater sense of who you are. When you give something up, you need to fill the space where it used to be, and you understand the landscape in yourself a bit more.

When somebody leaves this plane—or, if you like, goes into another room—those left behind sometimes try and stop loving—but this is a mistake, because even if you have loved only once in your life, you’re ruined.

Hands have their own language.

If there is such a thing as marriage, it takes place long before the ceremony; in a car on the way to the airport; or as a gray bedrooms fills with dawn, one lover watching the other; or as two strangers stand together in the rain with no bus in sight, arms weighed down with shopping bags. You don't know then. But later you realize - that was the moment.

Anyone who is desperate or alone will agree there is comfort in routine.