Whatever can die is beautiful — more beautiful than a unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world. Do you understand me?

You have to be very deep to be dead, he thought, and I'm not. He began to have some concept of forever, and his mind shivered as his body had when he had wakened in the cold nights and thrust his hands between his thighs to keep warm. It will be a long night, he thought.

I was facing him before the last word was out, but I should have been dead by then. In a way I did die, right there, all that time ago, and this is a ghost who has been telling you stories and drinking your wine. You don't understand. Never mind.

It's like marriage. The race there is between total knowledge of each other and death. If death comes first, it's considered a successful marriage.

I am infected with life and will die of it in time.