Nothing puts things in perspective as quickly as a mountain.

That was the way with grief: it left you alone for months together until you thought that you were cured, and then without warning it blotted out the sunlight.

I expect this is what death is like when you meet it. Sort of wildly unfair but inevitable.

If you think about the unthinkable long enough it becomes quite reasonable.

One would expect boredom to be a great yawning emotion, but it isn't, of course. It's a small niggling thing.

It is not possible to love and be wise.

After three days without one, the desire to read a newspaper vanished. And really, one was happier without.