“People love each other for all sorts of different reasons,” Roxane said, her lack of Spanish keeping her innocent of the conversation, slow-roasted guinea pigs on a spit. “Most of the time we’re loved for what we can do rather than for who we are. It’s not such a bad thing, being loved for what you can do.”

L’amour est un oiseau rebelle que nul ne peut apprivoiser, et c’est bien en vain qu’on l’appelle, s’il lui convient de refuser.

He tried to clear his heart of selfish thoughts while at the same time being grateful for all that God had granted him.

He spent his whole life in a confused dream state in which he was never exactly awake or completely asleep. He wondered sometimes if it was love or just a lack of rest that had twisted such a longing in his heart.

A kiss in so much loneliness was like a hand pulling you up out of the water, scooping you up from a place of drowning and into the reckless abundance of air.

Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. Don’t you think? It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world’s greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and ap

She came into your life through an air-conditioner vent and how she will leave is the question that keeps you awake in the few free moments you have to sleep.

In fate there was reward, in turning over one’s heart to God there was a magnificence that lay beyond description. At the moment one is sure that all is lost, look at what is gained!

That she would love him simply for having loved her?