The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future. Cut loose the past; it is dead weight. Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end.

A citizen of the Roman Empire, for example, would have placed less value on individual liberty in the modern Western sense than on collective responsibility.

When you get close enough to someone you're never really alone again.

In the Vortex that lies beyond time and space tumbled a police box that was not a police box.

When you realize that you are an eternal being, you will laugh at things that used to give you anxiety attacks.

The past is a distraction, a source of envy, enmity, bitterness. Only the present matters, for only in the present can we shape the future. Cut loose the past; it is dead weight. Let the Extirpation continue. Let it never end.

The Long Earth is bountiful but not forgiving.