I have taken into myself some of the assumptions of life in a Western democracy—certain ideas about legality, for instance, certain expectations of d… - Teju Cole

I became aware of just how fleeting the sense of happiness was, and how flimsy its basis: a warm restaurant after having come in from the rain, the smell of food and wine, interesting conversation, daylight falling weakly on the polished cherrywood of the tables.”

thousands of cars over the course of a day would pay toll at the informal rate, lining the pockets of the collectors and their superiors

WE EXPERIENCE LIFE AS A CONTINUITY, AND ONLY AFTER IT FALLS away, after it becomes the past, do we see its discontinuities. The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float.