Chapter 4, p. 90
“The last time we were together was too long ago, according to Time in dreams (not to say Love’s one, because I’m not in love —like the song says). We were walking without a watch. Walking indefinitely along the world, sometimes paying it attention, but only when it had something to do with ours. We saw the change in the colors of the setting and of the sky, and we heard the shifts of the city’s breathing, but the silence of the night still remained as intimate as the laugh of the day. I didn’t want to separate from her, (…)”
Chapter 2, p. 44
“Winter’s cold’s the opportunity to grow inwards. Pain is a great fuel for fire, for the fires you need to lit in winter. It burns like hell, screaming devilishly, drawing nightmares in the flames, casting noisy shadows. Then, the cold wind makes you cry. And it’s like sweating pain from the soul, that I knew. It wasn’t my first death. How horrible this one was for a long time! The pain’s good for burning, I said. Damn right it is. Pretty soon, LA sun lit all of me, and I myself was burning for days, and days, and days. I promise, the skin I have now is completely new. My flesh, my muscles, my bones, everything had to be put anew. I was dead, so I was cremated. My heart and brain remember everything to the last smallest detail… And I won’t allow them to forget. (…)”
Chapter 8.5, p. 172
“What’s one ever to say when he’s without remedy thorns to the lacrimals, lemon to a heart? As the sorcery of a flame is the beloved, and the lover shall but burn in every second’s night. And what’s there ever to say to them, that would bounce their undeserved forgiveness back? There’s no other matter that had inspired so many words than the love that is not loved back, and I accept this selfishness. But I have found scarcely any words from the side of the loved one, who has been exiled since somebody gave ‘life’ the name ‘love’; cast out and away from a right to a trial, punished to wear purple eyes as an ensign for torturer. However, in fairness, they have my compassion. I know how it is to be crazily loved —like facing a storm of spirit— and not loving back. (…)”