Show me an epigraph and I’ll show you a novel which has too good an idea of what it’s about. 
Stanley Elkin, “The Graduate Seminar”

The artist cannot dignify officialdom by opposing it in a solemn fashion, because that would mean taking it too seriously and inadvertently reinforcing its authority, thus acknowledging that authority. . . . In today’s rushed, confusing society in which everything mixes and is mixed up and destroyed, the ridiculous does run the risk of “swallowing up” art too. But the artist, even if he has been relegated to the position of a buffoon, tries to assume . . . an ambiguous stance, to place himself on a shaky seesaw, to transform the loss into a later gain. 
Norman Manea, On Clowns: The Dictator and the Artist

It is very good to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what you can't see any more but in your memory. . . . That way, your memories and your fantasy are freed from the tyranny of nature. 
Edgar Degas to Georges Jeanniot 
(quoted by Otto Friedrich in Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet)

All good and true draughtsmen draw from the image imprinted on their brains, and not from nature. . . . When a true artist has come to the point of the final execution of his work, the model would be more of an embarrassment than a help to him.
Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”
(translated by Jonathan Mayne)

The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform. 
Samuel Johnson, Rambler 134

Suppose Sonia tries her best to enact a paradox. She resolves that tomorrow she will enter the time machine and emerge today, unless a version of her first emerges today, having set out from tomorrow; and that if a version of her does emerge today, she will not enter the time machine tomorrow. Within classical physics, that resolution is self-contradictory. But not under quantum physics. In half the universes—call them A—an older Sonia steps out of the time machine. Consequently, just as she resolved, Sonia does not enter the time machine tomorrow, and each A-universe thereafter contains two Sonias of slightly different ages. In the other (B) universes, no one emerges from the time machine. . . .
So in half the universes there is a meeting between two Sonias, and in half there is not. In the A-universes an older Sonia appears “from nowhere,” and in the B-universes she disappears “into nowhere.” Each A-universe then contains two Sonias, the older one having started life in a B-universe. Sonia has gone missing from each B-universe, having emigrated to an A-universe. . . .
Suppose that Sonia’s boyfriend, Stephen, stays behind while she uses her time machine in one of the ways we have described. In half the universes, she enters it and never returns. Thus, from Stephen’s point of view, there is a possibility that he will be separated from her. Half the versions of him will see Sonia departing, never to return. (The other half will be joined by a second Sonia.) But from Sonia’s point of view, there is no possibility of her being separated from Stephen, because every version of her will end up in a universe containing a version of him—whom she will have to share with another version of herself. 
from “The Quantum Physics of Time Travel”
David Deutsch and Michael Lockwood 
Scientific American, March 1994 
Copyright © 1994 by Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.

“The aging Peter, in his room in Small’s Hotel, brings to mind this scene from his past: On Main Street at night, a gentle breeze is blowing, as in chapters 25, 26, and 27. There he sees the Glynn twins and . . . himself, young Peter! The three of them are walking .  . . no, no, they are waltzing, three pure souls dancing in the night air. He watches the three of them walking, and waltzing, and feels the bittersweet pain of nostalgia, and hears, in the distance, ringing bells: a new day has begun for him.”
 

THEME FOR THE GLYNNS

I should like to see the custom introduced of readers who are pleased with a book sending the author some small cash token: anything between half-a-crown and a hundred pounds.  Authors would then receive what their publishers give them as a flat rate and their “tips” from grateful readers in addition, in the same way that waiters receive a wage from their employers and also get what the customer leaves on the plate.  Not more than a few hundred pounds—that would be bad for my character—not less than half-a-crown—that would do no good to yours.

You should be able to find At Home with the Glynns at your local bookstore, but you can also order it by phone from: 

Bookbound at 1-800-959-7323 
Book Call at 1-800-255-2665 (worldwide 1-203-966-5470) 

At Home with the Glynns is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published by Crown Publishers, Inc., 201 East 50th Street, New York, New York 10022. Member of the Crown Publishing Group. 

The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for the smile.