“In the sedate neighborhood where he now lived, everyone was old, more or less. For years he had watched the neighbor to his right, a widower, slowly deteriorate, his stride becoming a shuffle, his house and yard gradually growing shabbier and shaggier, inch by inch, season by season, in increments so small that only a speeded-up film would show the process. The two men would converse across the fence from time to time; Fanshawe once or twice offered to do some pruning for his neighbor. ‘No, thanks,’ would be the answer. ‘I’ll get to it, when I’m feeling a little more lively.’ We look ahead and see random rises and falls; the linear diminishment so plain to others is invisible to us.”
—John Updike #