“Every small, concurrent event had slowed down and assumed an excruciating clarity.”

“the dreams had ceased coming, as they often did, retreating somewhere else for years, until another event of sufficient significance neared, and the patterns of circumstance dragged them to the surface again.”

“To consider water on any scale was to confront a boundless repetition of small events. There were the tiny wonders: rain drops, snow crystals, grains of frost aligned on a blade of grass; and there were the wonders so immense it seemed impossible to get his mind around them: global wind, oceanic currents, storms that broke like waves over whole mountain ranges. p 46”

“And this feeling, permeating every waking minute, that he had made too many wrong decisions.”

“All the events of his life were compressing to singularity: one night, one hour.”

“Over time his images of the baby, like photographs handled too often, had worn down and creased, lost their definition. ”

“It is the rarest thing...that gets preserved, that does not get erased, broken down, transformed.”