I liked it when our feet were aligned,left with left, and struck the ground at the sametime, leaving footprints on the shore that Iwished to return to and, in secret, place myfoot where his had left its mark.

Right now there's sorrow. I don't envy the pain. But I envy you the pain.

Existe una ley en algún lugar que dice que cuando una persona está totalmente enamorada de otra, es inevitable que la otra lo esté también. Amor ch'a null'amato amar perdona. .

«Chiagneva sempe ca durmeva sola,mo dorme co' li muorte accompagnata.She always wept because she slept alone,Now she sleeps among the dead.»I can, from the distance of years now, still think I'm hearing the voices of two young men singing these words in Neapolitan toward daybreak, neither realizing, as they held each other and kissed again and again on the dark lanes of old Rome, that this was the last night they would ever make love again.

Because it would be very wrong."Would"? (I asked).

I think we should go.”"Not yet.

This is love, he would have said, diffidence is love, fear itself is love, even the scorn you feel is love. Each of us comes by it the wrong way. Some spot it right away, others need years, and for some it comes in retrospect only.

. . . love, which happens only once in life, and thereafter is never quite spontaneous or impulsive.

You made me who I am today, Nanni. Wherever I go, everyone I see and crave is ultimately measured by the glow of your light. If my life were a boat, you were the one who stepped on board, turned on its running lights, and was never heard from again. All this might as well be in my head, and in my head it stays. But I've lived and loved by your light alone.