Perhaps it is not requital of love that you are after. Or perhaps your request for love disguises a quest for something quite different. How much love does someone like you need (…) objectively speaking? (…) None. None at all. We do not need love, old people like us. What we need is care: someone to hold our hand now and then when we get trembly (…). Care is not love. Care is a service that any nurse worth her salt can provide, as long as we don’t ask her for more.’
The years go by as quickly as a wink. So enjoy yourself while you are still in the pink. It’s always later than you think.
J. M. Coetzee, Slow Man
