“It passed, though. That was the bad thing. It always passed.”

“Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away".”

“Sometimes I feel as though the real things are passing me by. As though I've been pushed to the margins of life.”

“In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions.”

“You know things have gone bad when military marches pass for pop music.”

“And though I remember her name I cannot recall her face. All things pass.”