…everything has a past. Everything – a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future.

It's not a pretty world, Papa.'
'I've noticed,' my father said softly.

A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.

Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things.

It was a large store and i did not like to go in it because its brightness was cold, like sunlight on distant ice.

Oh, it makes a difference, I thought. And if it doesn't make a difference you will make it make a difference.