I used to believe, although I don't now, that growing and growing up are analogous, that both are inevitable and uncontrollable processes. Now it seems to me that growing up is governed by the will, that one can choose to become an adult, but only at given moments. These moments come along fairly infrequently -during crises in relationships, for example, or when one has been given the chance to start afresh somewhere- and one can ignore them or seize them.

The artistic temperament is particularly unhelpful if it is just that, with no end product.

Complaining about boring football is a little like complaining about the sad ending of King Lear: it misses the point somehow.

You just have to smile and take it, otherwise it would drive you mad.

We have one of those conversations where every thing clicks, meshes, corresponds, locks, where even our pauses, even our punctuation marks, seem to be nodding in agreement.

And what would happen if we never read the classics? There comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether you're a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and I'm beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun.

You had to live in your own bubble. You couldn't force your way into someone else's, because then it wouldn't be a bubble any more.