She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.

The learnin' mind is the livin' mind, Meronym said, an any sort o'Smart is truesome Smart, old Smart or new high Smart or low.

Wars do not combust without warning. They begin as little fires over the horizon. Wars approach. A wise man watches for the smoke, and prepares to vacate the neighborhood, just like Ayrs and Jocasta. My worry is that the next war will be so big, nowhere with a decent restaurant will be left untouched.

I elbowed my way into the grubby café, bought a pie that tasted of shoe polish and a pot of tea with cork crumbs floating in it, and eavesdropped on a pair of Shetland pony breeders. Despondency makes one hanker after lives one never led. Why have you given your life to books, TC? Dull, dull, dull! The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. "Admire me, for I am a metaphor.

I think we think in terms of stories.

The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken.

I feel like something important has happened to me. Is this possible?