How did Tom get there? Again, a piece of time had dropped out. — Sten Nadolny

"Es gibt zwei Sorten von Männern. Die einen verstehen etwas von Frauen, die anderen sind solche, die einfach Frauen verstehen."

"The game went on. John had understood nothing. Everything was too fast: the game, the others talk, the goings-on in the street..."

"Someday hed be quicker... to be like the sun, which only seems to wander slowly across the sky, yet whose rays are as quick as the blink of an eye. ...they reach in one instant the most distant mountains."

"Large animals, John thought, move more slowly than mice and wasps. Perhaps he was secretly a giant."

"If he could just stay there and gaze upon the land like a stone, whole centuries long, while grassy plains became forests and swamps turned into villages or tilled land. ...Hed be recognized as human only when he stirred."

"The most distant mountains, like himself, just stood there and gazed."