“But memories got left behind while you kept walking on; every time you had to retrace your steps further to return to your memories, and sometimes it was better not to turn back at all.”

“...unhappiness was something you got used to or something that passed.”

“If he had to wish, what would he wish for, he asked himself. What was there to wish for... a wish asked for the unattainable. The impossible.”

“The power of a woman was different, he decided: sly, fearless, changeable as the moods of the sea, but he knew instinctively that that was the power against which his own would be measured.”

“Nightly you retrace your steps again to return to the scene of the crime. It's uncanny how you hover in the air of the wreckage that you left behind.”

“To get ahead, sometimes you had to retrace your steps.”

“Umasi kept walking, out of sight and into the glittering night. Meahwhile, Zen lay alone, defeated on the cold ground, knowing that he had truly been left behind. Then the memories returned, and for the first time in his life, he cried.”