What she wants to say has to do not only with joy but with the penetrating, constant fear that is joy's other half.

Per un momento sono semplicemente e completamente felici. Ci sono, proprio adesso, e sono riuscite, in qualche modo, nel corso di diciotto anni, a continuare ad amarsi. È abbastanza. In questo momento è abbastanza.

I was living my own future and my brother's lost one as well. I represented him here just as he represented me there, in some unguessable other place. His move from life to death might resemble my stepping into the kitchen - into its soft nowhere quality and foggy hum. I breathed the dark air. If I had at that moment a sense of calm kindly death while my heart beat and my lungs expanded, he might know a similar sense of life in the middle of his ongoing death.

Laura po Kitty touží. Po její síle, po tom, jak věcně, pohodově přijímá všechna svá zklamání, po mihotavých růžovozlatých světlech její utajené osobnosti, po křehkých našamponovaných hlubinách jejích vlasů.

Love is deep, a mystery - who wants to understand its every particular?

Buongiorno, microbo,” dice a Richie.“Sto mangiando i cereali,” dice lui. E ridacchia. Si potrebbe quasi dire che le lancia uno sguardo malizioso. È palesemente infatuato di lei; è comico e tragico nel suo amore disperato. La fa pensare ogni tanto a un topo che canta serenate d’amore sotto la finestra di una gigantessa.

He needs a looser association. He needs something that implies a man who wants the ice shard to remain in his chest, who's learned to love the sensation of being pierced.

Barrett is a bigger guy, not fat (not yet) but ursine, crimson of eye and lip; ginger-furred, possessed (he likes to think) of an enchanted sensual slyness, the prince transformed into wolf or lion, all slumbering large-pawed docility, awaiting, with avid yellow eyes, love’s first kiss.

But you find—surprise—that you like this capitulation from her, this helpless acceding, from the most recent embodiment of all the girls over all the years who've given you nothing, not even a curious glance. Welcome to the darker side of love.