“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

“Mrs. May looked back at her. "Kate," she said after a moment, "stories never really end. They can go on and on and on. It's just that sometimes, at a certain point, one stops telling them.”

“Do not look back upon what has been done. Go ahead!”

“Reason well from the beginning and then there will never be any need to look back with confusion and doubt.”

“They say not to look back, but if you’re not sure what lies ahead, what else is there but looking back?”

“One has to look out for engineers-they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.”

“It will be seen that I look at the term species, as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, and for mere convenience sake.”

“At the beginning of a decade it is tempting to look ahead for the next ten years.”

“Idiot. Which road do you take when you're running from something weaker than yourself? Or maybe you're the one looking for an excuse to back out.”

“I call the beginning of death the whole course of life, beginning with our birth, from which point we commence to die, and each moment of every day brings us nearer to our end.”