You lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.

You grew old first not in your own eyes, but in other people's eyes; then, slowly, you agreed with their opinion of you.

Early in life, the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven't. Later, into those who have known love, and those who haven't. Later still - at least, if we are lucky (or, on the other hand, unlucky) - it divides into those who have endured grief, and those who haven't. These divisions are absolute; they are tropics we cross.

I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.

The more you learn, the less you fear.

Was it the case that colours dimmed as the eye grew elderly? Or was it rather that in youth your excitement about the world transferred itself onto everything you saw and made it brighter?

When you are writing fiction your task is to reflect the fullest complications of the world