“There was a quote he could not quite remember, something about the past being an island surrounded by time. He had missed the last boat to the island.”

“You were a stone wall, a fort in high,unreachable trees, an island, my own island, that no boat could reach.”

“Of all the islands he'd visited, two stood out. The island of the past, he said, where the only time was past time and the inhabitants were bored and more or less happy, but where the weight of illusion was so great that the island sank a little deeper into the river every day. And the island of the future, where the only time was the future, and the inhabitants were planners and strivers, such strivers, said Ulises, that they were likely to end up devouring one another.”

“In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.”

“Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.”

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”