His characters are ravaged, beaten. They walk through infernos and emerged charred doves.

I was aware now, as ever, that between all people there were First Times You See Them and Last Times you See Them.

Most people ended up, after only a couple of months, so far away from where they'd intended to go, stuck in some barbed underbrush of a quagmire when they'd meant to head straight to the ocean.

It's not fair. It's not. But then, that's the game. It makes life great. The fact that it ends when we don't want it to. The ending gives it meaning.

Such things as anguish, woe, affliction, guilt, feelings of awfulness, and utter wretchedness, the bread and butter of Days of Yore and Russians, sadly have very little staying power in these lickety-split Modern Times.

To be next to her was to have everything.

Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment.