We go to the past to lay the blame - since the past can't argue. We go to our past selves to account for our present miseries.
My parents believe in the happy endings to the stories of their children.
Every present anger derives from past weakness.
Peace is purchased in the currency of loss.
Snow makes cities innocent again, reveals the frailty of the human gesture against the void.
If Im going to invest the time in a novel, I want something more than the entertainment you get out of most genre fiction.