I often dream about the Dolphin Hotel.

And as the years have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I could recall in five seconds all too needed ten, then thirty, then a full minute - like shadows lengthening at dusk. Someday, I suppose, the shadows will be swallowed up in darkness.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday's dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

I'd made it back to the land of the living. No matter how boring or mediocre a world it might be, this was it.

No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.

Wherever there's hope there's a trial.

It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.