Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

This is what time travel is. It’s looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known a significant time.

“Always remember, mine Sadie: life is very long, unless it is not.”

But this was classic Sam—he had learned to tolerate the sometimes-painful present by living in the future.

To Marx, it seemed foolish not to love as many things as you could.

Sam’s grandfather had two core beliefs: (1) all things were knowable by anyone, and (2) anything was fixable if you took the time to figure out what was broken.

A glimmer of a notion of a nothing of a whisper of a figment of an idea.

It was only when he was alone and he couldn’t participate in the business of living that he tended to notice how lovely being alive was.

Every person you knew, every person you loved even, did not have to consume you for the time to have been worthwhile.

She had thought she arrived. But life was always arriving. There was always another gate to pass through.

Computers are great for experimentation, but they’re bad for deep thinking.”

She surprised herself by hoping that the idea would be sex. It turned out to be business.

“ ‘Zweisamkeit’ is the feeling of being alone even when you’re with other people.”

“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”

“And what is love, in the end?” Alabaster said. “Except the irrational desire to put evolutionary competitiveness aside in order to ease someone else’s journey through life?”

Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not?