Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.

Maybe the greatest favour a spouse can tender is to overlook what you can't.

Half an ear cocked, something in me, all night, every night, is waiting for you to come home.

In the particular dwells the tawdry. In the conceptual dwells the grand, the transcendent, the everlasting. Earthly countries and single malignant boys can go to hell; the idea of countries and the idea of sons triumph for eternity.

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.

Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.

The existence of other people is essentially awkward.