Ben

“We had moved from our fixed position and there was now no possibility of getting back to the way things were before she died. I could not tell whether the heavy feeling in my chest had to do with what might happen or with what had already happened and was irremediable.”
― William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

“I feel,' he said, after a silence, 'as though I were just beginning to have something to write about. As though I were beginning to be able to use that power I feel I've got inside me--that extra, latent power.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“The unpaved street we were now living on had no past and no future but only a wan present in which it was hard to think of anything to do.”
― William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

“After I couldn't remember any more except in a general way what she looked like, I could still remember the sound of her voice, and I clung to that.
I also clung to the idea that if things remained exactly the way they were, if we were careful not to take a step in any direction from the place where we were now, we would somehow get back to the way it was before she died. I knew that this was not a rational belief, but the alternative - that when people die they are really gone and I would never see her again - was more than I could manage then or for a long time afterward.”
― William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow