He relapsed into a silence in which his hopes scattered like mice into holes. - Paul Scott

I had the impression she had become unconscious of her surroundings and was watching the past flick by like a series of moving pictures, silent, uncaptioned; a gate here, a fence there; doors opening upon rooms sometimes empty, sometimes crowded; and stairs, endless, endless stairs down which one was afraid to go for the terror that awaited one's return.

It is said that every seven years of your life you undergo a change which reflects itself in your attitude to your circumstances and to other people, and I think this may be true. If it is, then the change begins towards the end of a seven-year span, at the point, perhaps, where dissatisfaction with what you are doing and with where you are going sets in.

Time is quick. Life is short.