Es gibt zwei Sorten von Männern. Die einen verstehen 'etwas von Frauen', die anderen sind solche, die einfach 'Frauen verstehen'. - Sten Nadolny

He didn't want to learn another thing. Motionless, he constantly stared at the same spot, unseeing. He breathed as if the air were loam. ...he no longer wanted to be quick. ...he wanted to slow down until he died. ...Outside the passage of time... until they'd think him dead. ...The alterations of day and night would finally become just a flickering... John sucked in the air and held his breath. ...everything would be as it had been before his birth. He would have never been.

In the study of history, slowness is an advantage. The scholar decelerates the fast-moving events of past days until his mind can fathom them. Then... he can demonstrate to the rashest king how he should have acted in battle.

Present and past—what had Dr. Orme said about that? The light was most fully in the present when, flaring up, it met John's eye directly. Whatever else he saw must have been lit up before and now shone only within his own eye—a light of the past.