Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges; then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it's noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear.

They told us to depend on memory, because nothing written down could be relied on. The Spirit travels from mouth to mouth, not from thing to thing: books could be burnt, paper crumbles away, computers could be destroyed. Only the spirit lives forever, and the Spirit isn't a thing.

But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.

When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.

We can’t remember what it is that we’ve forgotten. That we have been made to forget.

He will exist for her at least, he will be created by her, he will have a place in her mythology after all.

The fact is that I hate this city. I've hated it so long I can hardly remember feeling any other way about it.