This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.

You can put it another way, of course; you always can.

The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over historical moment, and is only partly in charge of his or her own aesthetic.

Do we tend to recall the most important parts of a novel or those that speak most directly to us, the truest lines or the flashiest ones?

We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isn't it? But if we can't understand time, can't grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we have with history--even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?

Do not imagine that Art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence . Art is not a brassiere. At least, not in the English sense. But do not forget that brassiere is the French word for life-jacket.

Every love story is a potential grief story.