"It struck me then how much the past - not just the past but history and family - was like the ocean tide. It was always the same ocean, but the waves made it fresh and new each time."

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I could have protested of course, who says I couldn't--I could have risen to my feet at any moment, walked up to them, and--no matter how difficult it would have been--made it abundantly clear that I was not seventeen but thirty. I could have--yet I couldn't because I didn't want to, the only thing I wanted was to prove that I was not an old-fashioned boy!

— Witold Gombrowicz