I look at my father, who was in many ways an unhappy person, but who, not long before he got sick, said that the greatest source of satisfaction in his life had been going to work in the company of other workers.

I had a Viking sense of entitlement to whatever provisions I could plunder.

It took hours to turn the clock back 30 seconds.

Here was a torture that Greek inventors of the Feast and the Stone had omitted from their Hades: the Blanket of Self-Deception. A lovely warm blanket as far as it covered the soul in torment, but it never quite covered everything.

Once there are good sentences on the page, I can feel a loyalty to them and start following their logic, and take refuge from myself.

There is, after all, a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it's the right unhappiness.

His tiredness hurt so much it kept him awake.