Fragments 1

1.

“In this world, time is a visible dimension. Just as one may look off in the distance and see houses, trees, mountain peaks that are landmarks in space, so one may look out in another direction and see births, marriages, deaths that are signposts in time, stretching off dimly into the far future. And just as one may choose whether to stay in one place or run to another, so one may choose his motion along the axis of time.”

2.

“When Joanne came up on her 19th birthday in February, never having been to New York before, we picked her up at Penn Station in a cab and she said, ‘Daddy, can I kiss the ground?’ And he said, ‘Anything you want to do. It’s your party.’”

3.

“He was thirty-two, but I thought him ancient. I also remember thinking: what must it be like to be Emperor of Rome? to know that one's face on coins, on monuments, painted and sculptured, is known to all the world? And here—so close to me that I could feel the reciprocal warmth of his skin—was the original of that world-famous face, not bronze or marble but soft flesh and bone, like me, like any other man. And I wondered: what is it like to be the centre of the world?”

4.

“The other people, do they have someone else inside them, passenger or parasite, like me?”

5.

“I have recorded this meeting with Oribasius, since he was to become my closest friend. […] He has told me since, ‘I've never seen anyone look so frightened as you.’

“When I told him that my memory of myself in those days was one of serene self-control, Oribasius laughed. ‘I was positive you were on the verge of madness. I even diagnosed you—incorrectly—as an epileptic.’”

1. Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams

2. from an interview with Frances Woodward, The Last Movie Stars

3,5. Gore Vidal, Julian

4. Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow