I thought if I was going to live a life in this land I was accidentally born on, I must people it; I must have a history. . .. I'm looking for these people inside me, wherever they may be; that is my form of research.

I rose and moved towards him. You would have done the same yourself. It is an ancient matter. Something propels you towards sudden grief, or perhaps also sometimes repels. You move away. I moved towards it, I couldn't help it.

What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking?

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.

For I did not want him to see, or to question me, for here contains already secrets, and my secrets are my fortune and my sanity.

I thought if I was going to live a life in this land I was accidentally born on, I must people it; I must have a history. . .. I'm looking for these people inside me, wherever they may be; that is my form of research.

It is very difficult to be a hero without an audience, although, in a sense, we are each the hero of a peculiar, half-ruined film called our life.