Romeo wouldn’t change his mind. That’s why people still remembered his name, always twined with hers.

But never in the four hundred years now since I was born, have I ever seen anything to make me doubt whether God exists in some form or the other. Not even the reflection in the mirror.

You haven’t changed at all. I expected a perceptible difference, but here you are, red-faced just like always.

...the way a man might hesitate before he kissed a woman, to gauge her reaction, to see how he would be received. Perhaps he would hesitate to prolong the moment, that ideal moment of anticipation, sometimes better than kiss itself.

He was right – she was beating herself up about hurting his feelings. The girl was a classic martyr. She’d totally been born in the wrong century. She should have lived back when she could have gotten herself fed to some lions for a good cause.

Because there was just one thing that I had to believe to be able to live - I had to know that he existed. That was all. Everything else I could endure. So long as he existed.

Love, life, meaning...over.