Never trust a storyteller," he says. "We're all of us liars.

Clockwork could not run counter to its nature. The seconds, minutes, and hours moved only forward. Patient, precise, and unstoppable. Memory was an indulgence, an illusion that broke like a wave upon the juggernaut of time. The past remained the past.

You are stronger than me," Asa says. "And in bravery and strength, there is a kind of beauty.

Sometimes, when we want something so badly, we fear failure more than we fear being without that thing.

He waved to the city and said good-bye. The city responded by carrying on the way it always did, traffic moving forward uninterrupted, without slowing, as if it were trying to demonstrate its permanence and show him it would still be there if he ever wanted to return. That promise was the best and only thing he could ask of it.

Never trust a storyteller," he says. "We're all of us liars.

In life, the hardest decisions often have to be made more than once. But each time, it gets easier.