And sometimes then he sat with us for an hour or so, sharing our limbo, listening while I read. Books from any shelf, opened at any page, in which I would start and finish anywhere, mid-sentence sometimes. Wuthering Heights ran into Emma, which gave way to The Eustace Diamonds, which faded into Hard Times, which ceded to The Woman in White. Fragments. It didn't matter. Art, its completeness, its formedness, its finishedness, had no power to console. Words, on the other hand, were a lifeline.

People whose lives are not balanced by a healthy love of money suffer from an appalling obsession with personal integrity.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same.

Of course I loved books more than people.

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

I read *old* novels. The reason is simple. I prefer proper endings.

I've nothing against people who love truth. Apart from the fact that they make dull companions.