Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled.

Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn't have to invent a thing.

I felt it very moving to feel his touch, and to remember that hands can also show love.

I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn’t even matter if I existed at all.

I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.

Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.

...because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope.