“One event sometimes had infinite ramifications and could change the whole settings of a person's life.”

“A person's life consists of a collection of events, the last of which could also change the meaning of the whole, not because it counts more than the previous onesbut because once they are included in a life, events are arranged in an order that is not chronological but, rather, corresponds to an inner architecture.”

“Sometimes something catastrophic can occur in a split second that changes a person's life forever; other times one minor incident can lead to another and then another and another, eventually setting off just as big a change in a body's life.”

“Hard to believe it had only been a few moments since the searchers had been there, shining their lights around in the room... because to Simon, it had been a whole world of change. Eons. His own personal apocalyptic event.”

“From Alan Lightman's intricate 1993 novel Einstein's Dreams; set in Berne in 1905: With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great-grandparents, great-aunts...and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own...Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.”

“Somehow he'd become the one constant in this whole uneven chapter in her life, & the idea that could change was unsettling.”