“But however minimal, however threadbare, it (collective memory) is ballast of a kind. We all need that seven-eighths of the iceberg, the ballast of the past, a general past, the place from which we...”

“It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.”

“The past is our ultimate privacy; we pile it up, year by year, decade by decade, it stows itself away, with its perverse random recall system.”

“Charlotte views her younger selves with a certain detachment. They are herself, but other incarnations, innocents going about half-forgotten business.”

“The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.”

“We all act as hinges-fortuitous links between other people.”

“The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.”

“At the age of 45, most days in Tucson were spent feeling like I was on the summit of Mauna Kea, as I was exhibiting debilitating health symptoms that corresponded to what I saw at very high altitud...”

“The hour is only long thus, if you've waited.”

“Youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.”

“Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it al...”

“The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.”