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Time Quotes in The Ocean at the End of the Lane

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

It was only then that I realized where I was going, where I had been going all along, and I grimaced at my own foolishness. I had been driving toward a house that had not existed for decades. (Prologue.2)

Time can be kinda funny like that. When you revisit a place that you knew a long time ago, your brain sometimes sends you back in time and you start to follow old habit patterns that you might've thought were long forgotten.

Quote #2

Soon I was driving, slowly, bumpily, down a narrow lane with brambles and briar roses on each side, wherever the edge was not a stand of hazels or a wild hedgerow. It felt like I had driven back in time. That lane was how I remembered it, when nothing else was. (Prologue. 11)

Can you think of a place like that? Where no matter how much time has passed, nothing has changed? It's getting rarer and rarer to have anywhere untouched by the progress of time.

Quote #3

As we age, we become our parents; live long enough and we see faces repeat in time. (Prologue. 22)

It's a scary thought, but it's been proven for generations: many of us do become our parents. Sometimes it takes becoming a parent yourself, but the first time you hear the words "Don't make me come back there!" come out of your mouth during a road trip will be a huge ah-ha moment.