"Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not promises of eternal passion,
it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day,
it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body.
No, don’t blush. I am telling you some truths.
That is just being “in love” which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away….
Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from the branches,
we found that we were one tree and not two."
De Bernières, a widowed father to his daughter in the novel Corelli’s Mandolin (1994)
De Bernières, a widowed father to his daughter in the novel Corelli’s Mandolin (1994)
