“I did not stop to think that one wave is inevitably followed by another even larger and more powerful, when the tide is coming in.”

“So the war swept over like a wave at the seashore, gathering power and size as i bore on us, overwhelming in its rush, seemingly inescapable, and then at the last moment eluded by a word from Phineas; I had simply ducked, that was all,and the wave's concentrated power had hurtled harmlessly overhead, no doubt throwing others roughly up on th beach, but leaving me peaceably treading water as before. I did not stop to think that one wave is inevitably followed by another even larger and more powerful, when the tide is coming in.”

“Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person "the world today" or "life" or "reality" he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever.”

“I did not know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.”

“So the more things remained the same, the more they changed after all. Nothing endures. Not love, not a tree, not even a death by violence.”

“So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all—plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change. Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence.”

“But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.”