Gray.The overcast skies had the colour of deadened stones, and seemed closer than usually, as though they were phlegmatically observing my every movement with their apathetic emptily blue-less eyes; each tiny drop of hazy rain drifting around resembled transparent molten steel, the pavement looked like it was about to burst into disconsolate tears, even the air itself was gray, so ultimate and ubiquitous that colour was everywhere around me.Gray...

a stone / which in its own archaic, simpleminded way / sees life as a chain of failed attempts.

The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.

Unlike wealth, fame makes it easier for some men and more difficult for some to sleep around.

The carved stone sign in front read Building C.Imaginative title, Langdon thought

A seed cannot grow in stone. It requires fertile soil & water. Compassion is the soil where life grows.