'If only our paltry minds,' he said, 'were able to embalm our memories! But memories keep badly. The most delicate fade and shrivel; the most voluptuous decay; the most delicious are the most dangerous in the end. The things one repents of were at first delicious.'
Again a long silence; and then he went on:
'Regrets, remorse, repentance, are past joys seen from behind. I don't like looking backwards and I leave my past behind me as the bird leaves his shade to fly away. Oh, Michel! every joy is always awaiting us, but it must always be the only one; it insists on finding the bed empty and demands from us a widower's welcome. Oh, Michel! every joy is like the manna of the desert which corrupts from one day to the next; it is like the fountains of Ameles, whose waters, says Plato, could never be kept in any vase... Let every moment carry away with it all that it brought.'

André Gide, The Immoralist (Penguin Books, 1960) p. 107