That's the purpose of old age... To give us a breathing space before we die, in which to see why we did what we did.

There was some justice in his pain

duty, the most indecent of all obsessions, was only another name for love.

Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I'll check my research.

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

...she looked like the sort of woman most men would want to get to know because they weren't sure what went on inside.

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.