It is always worth itemising happiness, there is so much of the other thing in a life, you had better put down the markers for happiness while you can.

That is because at the close of the day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body.

Because it strikes me there is something greater than judgement. I think it is called mercy.

The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say. He forgot to say, with every death it ends. Or did not think he needed to. Because for a goodly part of his life he worked in a graveyard.

I am old enough to know that time passing is just a trick, a convenience. Everything is always there, still unfolding, still happening. The past, the present, and the future, in the noggin eternally, like brushes, combs and ribbons in a handbag.

It had been a war of kingly poisons, in the air, in the memory, in the blood.

After all the world is indeed beautiful and if we were any other creature than man we might be continuously happy in it.