““It's wrong to be ashamed of yourself. Presumptuous and stupid. I've made myself sick with shame, because I could feel so strongly about another woman. I should instead feel ashamed of the years since then, when I felt nothing. What does it matter who you love? Isn't it the feeling that means something? A child can cry itself sick over a dead bird. And as an adult squeeze out two tears for a dead person. Which sorrow is more genuine? Or more valuable? A shabby office drudge can love his middle-aged wife as passionately as Tristan his Isolde. Is love ridiculous because its object is imperfect and perhaps unaesthetic?””
