Dont run before you can walk

But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel — independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.

At university, I used to write silly little sketches and monologues, but never fiction.

[He] didn’t like to think of himself as vain, but there were definitely times when he wished there was someone on hand to take his photograph.

We're not ourselves, are we? I'm certainly not myself, not anymore. And you're not either. You don't seem yourself. Not as I remember you.

Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water. Why not let it die instead?

The fact was I loved my wife to a degree that I found impossible to express, and so rarely did.