When the dawn light is coursing through the slats in the shutters at last, making thin stripes on the floor, she, tossing, decides that for every human soul there must surely be a possible childhood worth living, but once it slips by, there isn’t any reclaiming it or revising it.

Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery.

So she listened hard. And she began to evolve, because stories work their magic that way. They build conviction and erode conviction in equal measure.

That's all I want- to do no harm.

If one could drown in the grass, thought Elphie, that might be the best way to die.

To read, even in the half-dark, is also to call the lost forward.

The answer of course, is that the clock isn't meant to measure earthly time, but the time of the soul. Redemption and condemnation time. For the soul, each instant is always a minute short of judgment.