“One of the most frustrating words in the human language, as far as I could tell, was love.So much meaning attached to this one little word. People bandied it about freely, using it todescribe their attachments to possessions, pets, vacation destinations, and favorite foods. In thesame breath they then applied this word to the person they considered most important in theirlives. Wasn’t that insulting? Shouldn’t there be some other term to describe deeper emotion?”

“Did you mean it… that if Victor did tell…that you’d…” I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words have him killed.”I don’t have much influence in the upper levels of Moroi royalty, but I have plenty among the guardians who handle the dirty work in our world.””You didn’t answer the question. If you’d really do it.””I’d do a lot of things to protect you, Roza.”

“Can I say something?”Go on”I’m a little drunk”Me too. That’s okay.”Just….I missed you, you know.”I missed you too.”But so, so much, Dexter. There were so many things I wanted to talk to you about, and you weren’t there-”same here.”I tell you what it is. It’s…..When I didn’t see you, I thought about you every day, I mean EVERY DAY in some way or another-”same here.”-Even if it was just “I wish Dexter could see this” or “Where’s Dexter now?” or “Christ that Dexter, what an idiot”, you know what I mean, and seeing you today, well, I thought I’d got you back – my BEST friend. And now all this, the wedding, the baby- I’m so happy for you, Dex, but it feels like I’ve lost you again.’–‘You know what happens you have a family, your responsibilities change, you lose touch with people”It won’t be like that, I promise.”Do you?”Absolutely”You swear? No more disappearing?”I won’t if you won’t.’Their lips touched now, mouths pursed tight, their eyes open, both of them stock still. The moment held, a kind of glorious confusion.”

“I wish I had a boyfriend. I wish he lived in the wardrobe on a coat hanger. Whenever I wanted, I could get him out and he’d look at me the way boys do in films, as if I’m beautiful.”

“Sweets to the sweet.”

“Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.”

“Love is illogical, love had consequences–I did this to myself, and I should be able to take it.”

“Anaïs, I don’t know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late. You numb me. […] This is a little drunken, Anaïs. I am saying to myself “here is the first woman with whom I can be absolutely sincere.” I remember your saying – “you could fool me, I wouldn’t know it.” When I walk along the boulevards and think of that. I can’t fool you – and yet I would like to. I mean that I can never be absolutely loyal – it’s not in me. I love women, or life, too much – which it is, I don’t know. But laugh, Anaïs, I love to hear you laugh. You are the only woman who has a sense of gaiety, a wise tolerance – no more, you seem to urge me to betray you. I love you for that. […]I don’t know what to expect of you, but it is something in the way of a miracle. I am going to demand everything of you – even the impossible, because you encourage it. You are really strong. I even like your deceit, your treachery. It seems aristocratic to me.”

“Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don’t know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?””I do indeed, sir.””Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat–your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.”

“I should go,” I said thickly. “Let me know when you want to start practice again. And thanks for…talking.”I started to turn; then I heard him say abruptly, “No.”I glanced back. “What?”He held my gaze, and something warm and wonderful and powerful shot between us.”No,” he repeated. “I told her no.””I…” I shut my mouth before my jaw hit the floor. “But…why? That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You could have had a baby. And she…she was, you know, into you…”The ghost of a smile flickered on his face. “Yes, she was. Is. And that’s why I had to say no. I couldn’t return that…couldn’t give her what she wanted. Not when…” He took a few steps toward me. “Not when my heart is somewhere else.”

“You have my whole heart. You always did.”

“I don’t understand the point of being together if you’re not the happiest.”

“Those whom we most love are often the most alien to us.”

“That night when you kissed me, I left a poem in your mouth, and you can hear some of the lines every time you breathe out.”

“Looking at beauty in the world, is the first step of purifying the mind.”