Why is the measure of love loss?

I just thought it was a very nice opening line for a novel. And obviously, somebody already beat me to it because I just saw it in a printed page yesterday. Bummer. I like the way Jeanette Winterson writes. Lush and crisp, language flowing, the ambiguity of her characters. But she always gives me a headache and an uncontrollable feeling of sadness. One summer afternoon I read "Oranges are not the only fruit" in one sitting. By the end of the day, I wanted to run out of Powerbooks and hurl myself off the MRT. Nah. I was just being hyper dramatic.