In these night recitations we create a space between things as we felt them at the time and as we speak them now. This is the space reserved for irony, sympathy and fond amusement, the means by which we rescue ourselves from the past.

Not long ago, a novelist could believe he could have an effect on our consciousness of terror. Today, the men who shape and inflence human consciousness are the terrorists.

When I read obituaries I always note the age of the deceased. Automatically I relate this figure to my own age. Four years to go, I think. Nine more years. Two years and I'm dead. The power of numbers is never more evident than when we use them to speculate on the time of our dying.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

What you see is not what we see. What you see is distracted by memory, by being who you are, all this time, for all these years.

I am very unmusical. I can't carry a tune. I would never be able to play an instrument.