M...

"This is how he gardens: fifteen minutes of intense effort,  fifteen minutes of ecstatic contemplation."

The past has a future, something it becomes, and that transforms it. Like the facts themselves, the person, the "I", who experiences it and looks back on it discovers that it is not singular, but plural.

"We take almost all the decisive steps in our lives as a result of slight inner adjustments of which we are barely conscious."

"I have known only what I don't want. I’ve always had a thorn in my side, and I’ve always thought, When this thorn is removed I’ll think about what I want. But then that particular thorn would be removed, and I’d be left feeling emptied out. In a short time another thorn would be inserted into my side. Then, once again, all I had to think about was being free of the thorn in my side. I’ve never had time to think about what I want."