“This was how they wished they had been: each was creating an ideal into which he was now fitting his past life.”

“He had been granted his life's wish-but conditionally.”

“We are products of the past and we live immersed in the past, which encompasses us. How can we move towards the new life, how create new activities without getting out of the past and without placing ourselves above it? And how can we place ourselves above the past if we are in it and it is in us? There is no other way out except through thought, which does not break off relations with the past but rises ideally above it and converts it into knowledge.”

“All his life he had wished and waited, and there had been no change, except for the worse.”

“She fit perfectly in his arms. He wished she ift perfectly in his life.”

“But why would it matter? We aren't ... or...uh...weren't ..." Which is it, Jess? "Aren't" or "weren't"? Present or past tense? Now or then? "We haven't been talking to each other." Past imperfect tense. How appropriate.”