Once you turn forty...the whole world is water off a duck’s back. Once you turn forty you realize that life… — Geoff Dyer

They made two thousand years ago seem like yesterday, and yesterday look like today, just as today would, in time, look like tomorrow. (p. 128).

All we can do is keep applying the creosote, propping ourselves up with health and success, trying to keep the rain and the damp and the rot at bay for a little longer, trying to postpone the moment of complete collapse of abandonment for the same reason that one waits as long as possible for the alcoholic drink of the day: because the longer you leave it, the better it will feel. (p. 227).

Ruins—antique ruins at least—are what is left when history has moved on. They are no longer at the mercy of history, only of time. (p. 207).