I had the feeling . . . that my experience was very different from other people’s. (Are we all under this illusion?)

Perhaps middle-age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego.

Packing is chiefly planning -- if it is

What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!

Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip? Once you're off, that's all right, but the last moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail being pulled off your rock.

I feel we are all islands - in a common sea.

It is only framed in space that beauty blooms; only in space are events, and objects and people unique and significant and therefore beautiful.