“If only it could work backwards, but it can’t.”
Some people believed that too. That life could be redeemed. But it couldn’t be, and that was what was so terrible. He had loved only a few people and loved them so badly, so selfishly. He had made a muddle of everything. Was it only in the presence of death that one could see so clearly what love ought to be like? If only the knowledge which he had now, this absolute nothing-else-matters, could somehow go backwards and purify the little selfish loves and straighten out the muddles. But it could not. - Iris Murdoch, from Bruno’s Dream