“[She] knew that it was not precisely a body that one loved. One loved the man who shone out through the eyes and used its mouth to smile and speak.”Louis De Bernières Source: Corelli's Mandolin
“Your lips are like sugarAnd your cheeks an appleYour breasts are paradiseAnd your body a lily.O, to kiss the sugarTo bite the appleTo reveal paradiseAnd open the lily.”Louis De Bernières book Birds Without WingsSource: Birds Without Wings
“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!”Louis De Bernières Source: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin