Perhaps the way to succeed is to think of life on Earth as a colossal joke, a creation of such immense stupidity that the only way to live is to laugh until you think your heart will break.

I felt a momentary urge to leap into the sea and swim free of the present.

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

And still the brain continues to yearn, continues to burn, foolishly, with desire. My old man's brain is mocked by a body that still longs to stretch in the sun and form a beautiful shape in someone else's gaze, to lie under a blue sky and dream of helpless, selfless love, to behold itself, illuminated, in the golden light of another's eyes.

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.

Staying alive was what we did to pass the time.

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