Paolo Giordano quotes:

She was tired, with that tiredness that only emptiness brings.

In fact, they didn't talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other's silence.

[Their love] had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent.

Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other.

but his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them

Separating them were two layers of brick, a few inches of plaster, and nine years of silence.

She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.

With a little effort, she could get up by herself

Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains

Mattia's voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward.

All Mattia saw was a shadow moving toward him. He instinctively closed his eyes and then felt Alice's hot mouth on his, her tears on his cheek, or maybe they weren't hers, and finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.

All opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don't have to come up with anything new, there's no point, because you're both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it's only at that point that you need a strategy.

Do you really like studying?" Mattia nodded. "Why?" "It's the only thing I know how to do," he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn't hurt them either. But he said nothing.

Even though he was afraid to admit it, when he was with her it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.

Feeling special is the worst kind of cage a person can build for himself.

His scars were hidden and safe in her hand.

In the end it happens, in some way you couldn't imagine before.

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing.

Mattia was right: the days had slipped over her skin like a solvent, one after the other, each removing a very thin layer of pigment from her tattoo, and from both of their memories. The outlines, like the circumstances, were still there, black and well delineated, but the colors had merged together until they faded into a dull, uniform tonality, a neutral absence of meaning.

People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

She emptied herself of Fabio and of herself, of all the useless efforts she had made to get where she was and find nothing there. With detached curiosity she observed the rebirth of her weaknesses, her obsessions. This time she would let them decide, since she hadn't been able to do anything anyway. Against certain parts of yourself you remain powerless, she said to herself, as she regressed pleasurably to the time when she was a girl.

She hadn't chosen him over all the others. The truth was that she hadn't even thought about anyone else.

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it with his thumb and index finger. There was nothing special in the gesture and yet she found it strangely fascinating like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.

The love of those we don't love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.

The scene was set. All that was required was an action, a cold start, instant and brutal as beginnings always are.

They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time.

Twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. If you go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers. You develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you're about to surrender, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.

Why did you choose to stay here?" (...) "I don't know," he said. "It's as if there's more oxygen here.

You can fall ill with just a memory.

You'll get used to it. In the end you won't even notice it anymore," he said. "How is that possible? It will always be there, right before my eyes." "Exactly," said Mattia. "Which is precisely why you won't see it anymore.

...finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.