"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not (...) promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away (...) when your roots grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom has fallen from the branches, you find that you are one tree, not two."

- excerpt from Captain Corelli's Mandolin