In the end, what really matters? Only kindness. Only making somebody a little happier for your presence.

Don't you see what's happened? You wanted to be in love again. To feel that feeling where a man you hardly know gazes into your eyes and seems to be the only human being who ever understood the real you.

I'm like the trunk of a cactus... I take in a dose of culture and time with friends, then I retreat and go live on it for awhile until I get thirsty again.

I always use primary sources, in addition to reading biographies and other materials.

How small we humans are. All our scrambling around, trying to buttress ourselves against death. All our efforts to insulate ourselves against uncertainty with codes of behavior and meaningless busyness.

It has always been on the written page that the world has come into focus for me. If I can piece all these bits of memory together with the diaries and letters and the scribbled thoughts that clutter my mind and bookshelves, then maybe I can explain what happened. Maybe the worlds I have inhabited for the past seven years will assume order and logic and wholeness on paper. Maybe I can tell my story in a way that is useful to someone else.

In the end, what really matters? Only kindness. Only making somebody a little happier for your presence.