Innately affectionate, and innately afraid of unreturned affection, and indomitably unwilling to let any of that stop her.

My affection for you does not depend on those small things.’
Affection? To hear him admit it, to actually utter words of love, however understated, astonished me.

Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.

Like to hear a vampire folk tale?" Sarasti asked.

"Vampires have folk tales?"

He took it for a yes. "A laser is assigned to find the darkness. Since it lives in a room without doors, or windows, or any other source of light, it thinks this will be easy. But everywhere it turns it sees brightness. Every wall, every piece of furniture it points at is brightly lit. Eventually it concludes there is no darkness, that light is everywhere.

The great thing about making yourself the villain is nobody’s likely to contradict you.

It’s not in the nature of the lamb to mourn the lion.