“Their imaginations put the scene on a film loop. Guiltily, they watched it until their mental screens began to wash the rest of the past away.”

“The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.”

“When she emerged, Keith was watching the tiny round window of the under-the-counter washing machine. "Put your clothes in for a wash," he said. "They were disgusting."Ginny always thought that the only way of getting clothes clean was by drowning them in scalding water and then whipping them around in a violent centrifugal motion that caused the entire washing machine to vibrate and the floor to shake. You beat them clean. You made them suffer. This machine used about half a cup of water and was about as violent as a toaster, plus it stopped every few minutes, as if it were exhausted from the effort of turning itself.Sluff, sluff, sluff sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest.Click.Sluff, sluff, sluff, sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest."Who thought to put a window on a washing machine?" Keith asked. "Does anyone just sit and watch their wash?"You mean, besides us?""Well," he said, "yeah. Is there any coffee?”

“A mental stain can neither be blotted out by the passage of time nor washed away by any waters.”

“...the reality of the days washed away the possibilities of the past, and time moved on.”

“What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.”