“How I would like to have them back, those pointless afternoons - the boredom, the aimlessness, the unformed possibilities.”

“If I was telling this story to the girls from back home, I would have to explain to them how it was possible to be drowning in a river of people and also feel so very, very alone.”

“How wicked I was to wish that something dramatic would happen!' she thought. 'Oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant days back again! I would *never* grumble about them again.”

“It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.”

“Might have, could have, may have, should have—the haves and have nots reduced to pointless possibilities.”

“How does that goddamn cliché go? If I’d known then what I know now. Or maybe I should have heeded the opposite warning. Maybe I should have delved a little deeper into then back when I was wandering aimlessly around now.”