Staying alive was what we did to pass the time.

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.

I guess there was a war going on somewhere in the world that night but it wasn't one that could touch us.

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.

I'd like to think life has improved since 1850, despite the long hours we all seem to spend slaving over hot computers, but the psychological journeys remain the same - the search for love, identity, a meaningful place in the world.

Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.

The soldier had stamped my passport FAMILY in heavy black capital letters and I checked it now for reassurance and because I liked how fierce the word looked