T.S.Eliot

I love that quotation about Balanchine! It reminds me a little of the opening of 'Burnt Norton', the first of T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets. It might turn out that the resemblance is superficial and that they are not saying quite the same thing. Still, I thought I'd post Eliot's lines in case they turn out to be helpful:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.