“If only, then, I had been more living out of the present--such a beautiful word...present. The sense of it being, now to me, more beautiful than 'to look forward.”

“The past haunts the present in more ways than we think. It certainly scares the living daylights out of ME"~ Old Wrinkly”

“She could sense it very clearly: for me, no less than for her, the past counted far more than the present, remembering something far more than possessing it. Compared to memory, every possession can only ever seem disappointing, banal, inadequate ... She understood me so well! My anxiety that the present 'immediately' turned into the past so that I could love it and dream about it at leisure was just like hers, was identical. It was 'our' vice, this: to go forwards with our heads forever turned back.”

“To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.”

“I understood now: how nothing looked more beautiful than that scar of his, that borderline that separated what Jacob could have been had he stayed in that orphanage from who he is.”

“You’re beautiful, Finnie, but by the gods you have never been more beautiful than you are right now, spread before me, wrapped in my wool and filled with me”