But this is how I remember these things, and all we can ever be is faithful to our memories of reality, rather than the reality itself, which is something closely related but never precisely the same thing.

I pick it up and turn to a random page and read a sentence — 'Nothing fixes a thing so firmly in the memory as the wish to forget it'.

History was, is, a one-way street. You have to keep walking forwards, but you don't always need to look ahead. Sometimes you can just look around and be happy right where you are.

People you love never die.That is what Omai had said, all those years ago.And he was right. They don't die. Not completely. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide shops in unfamiliar waters. If you stop mourning them, and start listening to them, they still have the power to change your life. They can, in short, be salvation.

Nothing fixes a thing so firmly in the memory as the wish to forget it.