A quote recalled by the way, passionless (9)
I believe the answer is:
apathetic
'passionless' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a quote recalled by the way' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'a' is within the answer.
'by' could be 'at' and 'at' is found within the answer.
an anagram of 'the' is 'het' which is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'pic' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for apathetic that I've seen before include "Having little interest, indifferent" , "Showing no emotion or interest" , "cool?" , "without interest" , "Lacking passion" .)