“Faded, yes. Reduced in substance. He seemed not entirely there, to others or to himself. He was preoccupied, absentminded, always distracted. His manner was that of a man constantly patting his pockets in search of something he had lost, or misplaced, or only imagined had been there in the first place.”

“Faded, yes. Reduced in substance. He seemed not entirely there, to others or to himself. He was preoccupied, absentminded, always distracted. His manner was that of a man constantly patting his pockets in search of something he had lost, or misplaced, or only imagined had been there in the first place.”

— John Banville