He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.

Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists.

What is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.

You can define a net two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally you would say it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string.

One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.

What is history? Any thoughts, Webster?' 'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied, a little too quickly. 'Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated. ... 'Finn?' '"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." (quoting Patrick Lagrange)

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.