"She is you; the very pores of your breath. Without her, this city, this country, would be a barren place of exile. And, as you walk further into the maze of this city, these grey walls and floors of concrete and steel and stone, you know that without her, the labyrinth would eventually turn you into stone, for modern cities are the new man-made deserts in which man traps himself and bleeds himself of all his rich warm fertile humanity and goodness.

Loving her and knowing to the frightened quick of your bones that you can now lose her, has made you fearfully aware for the first time of the impermanence of all things and the finality of life: that even love -- the most precious feeling we can have for another -- can die or be destroyed. But you have no choice. You are committed totally, for love commits one totally to life and to death."