“It is finished. Old Mitsima's words repeated themselves in his mind. Finished, finished....In silence and from a long way off, but violently. desperately, hopelessly, he had loved Kiakimé. And now it was finished. He was sixteen.”
“[T]he race is long - to finish first, first you must finish.”
“The world wasn't built in a day. It took a long time to get this far and it still isn't finished. It never will be finished. When something's finished, it's dead. But even then, it isn't finished. Nothing ever really is. Sometimes it just looks that way.”
“He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.”
“He ordered a family pack of chicken, and sat and finished it off without any help from anyone else in his family.”
“Yes: the race is long-to finish first, first you must finish. ~p206”