She should have done science, not spent all her time with her head in novels. Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness

Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being.

...it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was.

O passado é aquilo que transportamos connosco

The past is what you take with you.

She allowed the hum and buzz of the park to lullaby her. Life wasn’t about becoming, was it? It was about being. Dr Kellet would have approved this thought. And everything was ephemeral, yet everything was eternal, she thought sleepily.

Don't you wonder sometimes,' Ursula said. 'If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in--I don't know, say, a Quaker household--surely things would be different.

If people believed in eternal damnation they might not be seizing the day quite so much.