First of all we have to plant the Garden of Eden, because without the Garden of Eden there is no serpent; without the boughs of the apple tree to hid… - Gail Hareven

Love can be described as compulsive thinking. The thought buzzes and buzzes like an insect stuck to a wet picture...Compulsive thinking latches on to details and dwells on them as if they hold enormous significance which cannot be grasped in a moment. It keeps returning to them again and again as if there is still something left to understand. The more I think about the meaning of these gestures the sicker I get of my thoughts and of myself for thinking them. (p34-5)

For me there’s no dichotomy between thought on one hand, and feelings or passion on the other. They aren’t different spheres. In a way, I believe that our passions appear to us in the form of thoughts. And that thought can be extremely passionate. Every person, when he experiences some kind of feeling, also relates to that feeling — judges it, evaluates it. I think that what makes people different is not so much what they feel as the different ways they respond to their feelings.

what does it help me to know that the heart is a muscle, just a blood-pumping muscle, if my heart still goes out to him, and the bloody muscle still yearns and swells? (p38)