"All prisoners dream of freedom, perhaps never more so when they know there isn’t, and will never be, any possibility of escape."

Can We Escape from Time?

John Lanchester

"All this energy and brilliance, and yet we’re left feeling a little flat. The new idea, time travel, is appealing because we know time better than we used to. We know, much better than our ancestors, the exact lineaments of what Kipling called “the unforgiving minute.” Our time is more universal and more precise than ever, and we’re more than ever aware of the fact; it’s no wonder that we dream so much and think so fervently of ways in which time might be bent, stretched, reversed, made less unyielding and less unforgiving. All prisoners dream of freedom, perhaps never more so when they know there isn’t, and will never be, any possibility of escape."