“Fermina, he said, I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.”

“I shall never have a bath again," I said.
"Just dont have one too often," my grandmother said. "Once a month is quite enough for a sensible child." It was at times like these that I loved my grandmother more than ever.”

“This is eternal life; a life of everlasting love, showing itself in everlasting good works; and whosoever lives that life, he lives the life of God, and hath eternal life.”

“I did it because I love you!" he half-shouted, and then, as if registering the shocked look her face, he said in a more subdued voice, "I love you, Tessa, and I have loved you, almost since the moment I met you.”

“Listen, you impossible creature," he said, "I'm a century and more older than--"
"Oh, be quiet," I said impatiently.”

“Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
If I could hear his heart softly pounding
Yes, and only if he was lying by me
Would I lie in my bed once again.”

“A lover who promises eternal fidelity is more likely to be believed if he believes his promise himself; he is no more likely to keep the promise.”

“We are not men, to have need of another, an eternal life; we are women, and for us one moment with man we love is everlasting Paradise, one moment far from the man we love is everlasting hell. It is here on earth that we women love out eternity”

“I have loved colours, and not flowers;
Their motion, not the swallows wings;
And wasted more than half my hours
Without the comradeship of things.”

“Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.”