The past hung in the present like smoke in the air, like vapour trails, fading out slowly.

You couldn't protect the people you loved - that was the lesson of history, and it struck him therefore that to love someone meant to be opened up to a radically heightened level of suffering.

I suppose that’s what everybody wants, isn’t it. To be like everybody else. But nobody is like everybody else. That’s the one thing we have in common.

That's the past, isn't it. You think it's behind you, then one day you walk into a room and it's there waiting for you.