come back, come back to me

If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.

And feeling clever, I've always thought, is just a sigh away from being cheerful.

Be wary of too much calm, particularly in your mid-fifties.

She returned his gaze, struck by the sense of her own transformation, and overwhelmed by the beauty which a lifetime havit had taught her to ignore.

Dying in unfamiliar surroundings miles away from home, it cannot possibly be good. There is a great sadness about that I think.

Novels help us to resist the temptation to think of the past as deficient.