Michael Ondaatje
:: In the Skin of a Lion
There was a wall in him that no-one reached ... A tiny stone swallowed years back that had grown with him and which he carried around because he could not shed it. His motive for hiding it had probably extinguished itself years earlier ... Patrick and his small unimportant stone. It had entered him at the wrong time of his life. Then it had been a flint of terror. He could have easily turned aside at the age of seven or twenty, and just spat it out and kept on walking, and forgotten it by the next street corner.
So we are built.
If we meet again we can say hello, we can say goodbye.
Only a dead name is permanent.