“The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only the electronic clocks but the wind-up kind too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again.There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling I had to believe whatever clocks said -and calendars.”

“Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks?”

“When Will Graham could open his right eye, he saw the clock and knew where he was- an intensive-care unit. He knew to watch the clock. Its movement assured him that this was passing, would pass. That's what it was there for.”

“A story conducted by the time of a clock and calendars alone would be a story not of human beings but of mechanical toys.”

“Something rippled round the table: a loosening, a settling, a long sigh too low to hear. Un ange passe, my French grandfather would have said: an angel is passing. Somewhere upstairs I heard the faint, dreamy note of a clock striking.”

“I avoid looking at the clock, fearing the slow passing of time that will only seem slower if I watch its progress.”