It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.

I go to mass every Sunday, but love going to mosques too. Muslims pray in a beautiful way.

I can well imagine an athiest's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!" - and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.

My greatest wish - other than salvation - was to have a book.

It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion.

And what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities-the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch? (pg. 98)

Time is an illusion that makes us all pant.