I find hunger more interesting than accomplishment.

I once saved someone from drowning.

I live in Rome where people sit by fountains and kiss. The sound of water is the sound of love rushing between them.

Lives are staged from within.

We touched with a softness that pushed through the skin into memory, like arms plunged into a river – we could feel the weight of each other’s stones.

But war only ends for those who have not been in one.

If there is such a thing as marriage, it takes place long before the ceremony; in a car on the way to the airport; or as a gray bedrooms fills with dawn, one lover watching the other; or as two strangers stand together in the rain with no bus in sight, arms weighed down with shopping bags. You don’t know then. But later you realize – that was the moment.

As an archaeologist, I’ve often wondered how we as a race keep going through all the misery. The answer is revealed: the potential for closeness with strangers. Floating.

I want the sea to tell them I’ve found someone I want to marry and that I have to say good-bye –.

To love again, you must not discard what has happened to you, but take from it the strength you’ll need to carry on.