“The sound of anything coming at you–a train, say, or the future–has a higher pitch than the sound of the same thing going away. If you have perfect pitch and a head for mathematics, you can compute the speed of the object by the interval between it’s arriving and departing sounds. I have neither perfect pitch nor a head for mathematics, and anyway, who wants to compute the speed of history? Like all falling bodies, it constantly accelerates. But I would like to hear your life as you heard it, coming at you, instead of hearing it as I do, a sober sound of expectations reduced, desire blunted, hopes deferred or abandoned, chances lost, defeats accepted, griefs borne.”

– (Angle of Repose pp. 25)