When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

We live with such easy assumptions, don't we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it's all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it's not convenient--- it's not useful--- to believe this; it doesn't help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it.

In life, every ending is just the start of another story.

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

Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from our human and filial duty which was to study, pass exams, use those qualifications to find a job, and then put together a way of life unthreateningly fuller than that of our parents, who would approve, while privately comparing it to their own earlier lives, which had been simpler, and therefore superior.

Had my life increased, or merely added to itself? There had been addition and subtraction in my life, but how much multiplication?

I don't believe in God, but I miss him.