Prologue:
Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.
Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.
Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.
This has been my life; I found it worth living.
Bertrand Russell
"Well, Carlisle, if your Jesus could turn water into wine, and feed multitudes with a small amount of food, I'm sure he could make a woman fall in love with you when she's a teenager; screw up her life bad enough to make her attempt suicide ten years later, in a city where you happen to work at the nearest hospital, and keep her on the very edge of life long enough for you, who happens to be her true soul mate, to change her into a vampire. Just call it a miracle."