“His absence has only made him more present.”

“So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.”

“Every minute of his life since then has been marked by her absence, every action has lacked dimension because she is not there to measure against. And when I was young I didn't understand, but now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird.”

“It wasn't only that you didn't see him anymore, meet him anymore. You saw his absence and encountered it as something tangible. His not being there was like the sharply outlined emptiness of a photo with a figure cut out precisely with scissors and now the missing figure is more important, more dominant than all others.”

“Harald seemed to be an invisible but ever-present spirit who affected life in the village by his absence.”

“Paul, careening down the slide with his arms out flung, and Phoebe, present somehow through her absence.”