“It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.”

“You can't ever guess at life, at pain. All pain is real, and all pain is personal. It's the most personal thing we have. It eats each of us differently.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

“You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

“When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

“Past is dead
Future is uncertain;
Present is all you have,
So eat, drink and live merry.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“What good are all these books to you? You can't eat them! How can they make you happy?”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

“Explaining something makes it go away, so to speak; what's important is left after you have explained everything else.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

“Or… if you actually waited until you were married to lose your virginity, because you are so much a better person than the sniveling snot that we are, you were able to do that, because you were able to wait through everything, through all those feelings, all those hormones, all of that, you could wait, until that night to make love to (for the first time) to the person that you are gonna make love to for the rest of your life, because you are a gambler on a level that I have never fuckin' imagined! My hat is off to you! Wow! What courage!”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

“… and what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions until all you can remember is a name.”

Jay McInerney book Bright Lights, Big City

“Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.”

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978) Vice-President of the USA under Lyndon B. Johnson