“Men and things rise, fall, move away, approach. Everything is a comedy of distances.”

“Better sit still, men say, than rise to fall.”

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”

“No. It is said that the Nephilim are the children of men and angels. All that this angelic heritage has given to us is a longer distance to fall.”

“Magnus reached out to touch Alec, but Alec moved away. Magnus' hand fall to himself.”

“The wind came steadily, like the rushing of a great cataract heard at a great distance, but the noises of the sea were continually changing, rising and falling, with the stupendous modulations of an orchestra played by giants.”

“[The loss- of-strength gradient is] the degree to which military and political power diminishes as we move a unit distance away from its home base.”

“This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you”

“The story of the rise, fall, and forgetting of the individual is the tale of the rise, fall, and repression of psychoanalysis.”

“He had the sudden urge to put his arms around her, but the look on her face said that if he made a move toward her, she would move away, and maybe she would keep moving away from him until the distance between them was too great to cross again in one lifetime.”