“I am beginning to feel at home in the past and a visitor to this strange and blanched experience we agree to call the present”

“Love affairs, in their beginnings, are all about the present. But there is a point in each--an event, an exchange, some other unseen trigger--which forces the past and the future back into focus.”

“‎"A noise, and the past was chased away, dispersed into the shadows like smoke by the brighter, louder present.”

“You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor.""I don't want to survive it.""I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice...”

“While I wasn't certain how I felt about spiritualists, I was certain enough about the type of people who were drawn to them. Only people unhappy in the present seek to know the future.”

“Only people unhappy in the present seek to know the future.”

“I sound contemptuous, but I am not. I am interested--intrigued even--by the way time erases real lives, leaving only vague imprints. Blood and spirit fade away so that only names and dates remain.”