All my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond... flesh, the moment of being alive... then nothing. I had searched in superstition... But there was nothing. Then I heard the sound of my own life leaving me. It was so... tender. I regretted that I had paid it no attention. Then I believed in the wisdom of what other men had found before me... I saw that those simple things might be true... I never wanted to believe in them because it was better to fight my own battle. You can believe in something without compromising the burden of your own existence.

Oh, the sweetness of giving in, of full surrender.

In the 1970s, British food was beginning to get good, whereas in France it was just starting its long, sad decline. My most memorable meals, however, have been in Italy.

A bit of the vagueness of music stops you going completely mad, I imagine.

One thing about London is that when you step out into the night, it swallows you.

I want to be careful not to throw all this away. This is happiness. I think this is what happiness is. I haven't got it yet, but I can sense it out there. I feel I'm close to it. Some days, I'm so close I can almost smell it.

He wrote one more paragraph for his own sake, to see what he had to say.