“And he would never have instructed her to tell his past self such a story and expected himself to believe it.”

“In the rational light of day, he could tell himself that it was better this way, for both of them. The past was the past, nothing but memories buried, and the pain of losing something precious was but brief. Most of the time he could make himself believe it, but sometimes in the night, with no company but his own echoing thoughts, the past would sneak up on him.”

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.”

“His mind had been working away behind his high forehead. Unimaginative himself he could recognize imagination in her: he had come upon one whose whole nature was the contradiction of his own. He knew that behind her simplicity was something he could never have. Something he despised as impractical. Something which would never carry her to power or riches, but would retard her progress and keep her apart in a world of her own make-believe. To win her favour he must talk in her own language.”

“And then he tells her stories. Myths he learned from his instructor. Fantasies he created himself, inspired by bits and pieces of others read in archaic books with crackling spines.”

“Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be. ”