My love, I caught sight of you a few moments ago, deep in conversation with a very sober-looking man, and I thought here is a bureaucrat sent by Reality to demand a full accounting, to investigate us on suspicion of fraud... on suspicion of being happy. Yes, there is something scandalous, something privileged and elitist about our love, because two people happily in love always turn their backs on the world; and so I am afraid. (From Laura’s note).

To 'live', to be truly alive, it is not enough simply to breathe, to suffer, nor even to be happy; life is a secret that cannot be discovered on one’s own. True living is done in pairs.

— When a man close to sixty decides to break with a young woman whom he loves, and who loves him, what would you call it?— Damned stupidity, sir.— Yes, damned stupidity; in other words, ‘good sense’.

The pristine vision of childhood restores freshness to even the most time-worn scenes, and in Laura’s company I recovered some of the delights I had experienced years ago when my son was a little boy.

There are those who have said about us, “What does she see in him?” or “What does he see in her?”; the usual sort of thing that only proves two people indeed see everything in each other.

I love you', she said, to remind me that there was one answer to everything, and only one.