“Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?”

“It was now twenty minutes past four in the morning, allowing for the fact that the clock in the library of his town house was four minutes slow, as it had been for as far back as he could remember.He eyed it with a frown of concentration. Now that he came to think about it, he must have it set right one of these days.Why should a clock be forced to go throught its entire existence four minutes behind the rest of the world? It was not logical.The trouble was though, that if the clock were suddenly right, he would be forever confused and arriving four minutes early -- or did he mena late? -- for meals and various other appointments. That would agitate his servants and cause consternation in the kitchen.It was probably better to leave the clock as it was.”

“Who would have guessed that the monster of fraud was a democracy?”

“Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.”

“You can't change who you are, can you? That would require changing the people who made you along the way. That would mean discrediting everything they ever gave you.”

“Everything in her life was in flux and she needed strong, steady and stable. Oddly, she found those three things in me. Who would ever have guessed I’d be the reliable sort?”