I don't get nearly enough credit in life for the things I manage not to say.

This was what happiness felt like - this wondrous, miraculous alternative to dread.

I, a late riser, fantasise about getting up every morning at 5 A.M. to fetch the horses in from the fields.

If you haven't been in a war and are wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you need or love, I can tell you the answer is no time at all.

I'm a century old, an impossible age, and my brain has no anchor in the present. Instead it drifts, nearly always to the same shore. Today, as most days, it is 1962. The year I discovered love.

The real truth is that the war didn't have much to do with it except that it provided a perfect limbo in which two people who were too young and too related could start kissing without anything or anyone making us stop.

Fate isn't some middle-aged man with a squint who won't recognize you if you change your clothes.