“She would say that what is past, one cannot change, so each backward glance is a bit of the present slipping away.”

“What is past, one cannot change,so each backward glance is a bit of the present slipping away.”

“Novel-writing can be a cold-blooded business. One uses whatever happens to be lying around in memory and employs it to suit one’s end….Then, again, during the months whilst one is writing about the past, a story is colored by what presently is happening to its writer. So, imperceptibly, the tone of voice changes, original intentions slip away. And I found myself looking through another window at a darker landscape inhabited by neither the present nor the past. ”

“One is allowed to change the past: the present is so stubborn.”

“I slipped from present to past, sliding down the snake heads of memory into what was and what would never be again.”

“Life moves forward, not backward, and it would be wise to listen to what change has to say.”