Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Other things - naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror - are too terrible to really ever grasp at all. It is only later, in solitude, in memory, that the realization dawns: when the ashes are cold; when the mourners have departed; when one looks around and finds oneself - quite to one’s surprise - in an entirely different world.
— Donna Tartt - The Secret History
