“Now he knew that any memories he might cherish during the last years of his life would be only fictions from a biography he'd never lived.”

“The voice was Clary's. He would know it from anywhere. He wondered if his mind was conjuring it up now, a sense memory of what he'd most loved during his life to carry him through the process of death. "Simon, you stupid idiot! I'm over here! At the window!”

“He put his hand on his forehead and scoured the French department of his memory for a word. He knew it was in there. He'd put it in almost fifty years before and hadn't had cause to remove it. But for the life of him he couldn't find it.”

“He would ask nothing else from life if he would be allowed to protect and cherish her for the rest of his.”

“How well they all knew each other now, he thought. In twelve weeks James felt he had come to know more about these three men than any of the so-called friends he'd known for twenty years. For the first time he understood why his father continually referred back to friendships formed during the war with men he normally would never have met. He realised how much he was going to miss Stephen when he returned to America. Success was, in fact, going to split them up.”

“He knew these last lines by heart and mouthed them now in the darkness. My reason for life. Not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive.”