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.

“You’re incredibly gifted, Sam. But it is worth noting that to be good at something is not quite the same as loving it.”

This life is filled with inescapable moral compromises. We should do what we can to avoid the easy ones.”

“Always remember, mine Sadie: life is very long, unless it is not.” Sadie knew this to be a tautology, but it also happened to be true.

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

There is a time for any fledgling artist where one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities. The only way to get through this period is to make things anyway.

“No. You’ll never die. And if you ever died, I’d just start the game again,” Sadie said.

“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.”

“It means a very long game of Go, played without stops.”

“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?”

Sadie had willed herself to be great: art doesn’t typically get made by happy people.

“Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.” “That’s a game character’s life, too,” Sam said. “The world of infinite restarts. Start again at the beginning, this time you might win. And it’s not as if all our results were bad. I love the things we made. We were a great team.”