You can't recall someone whose name has worn away.

It was entirely silent and I tried to breathe its peace.

That's what opium does to suffering: makes it of hypothetical interest only.

I think closeness to death would be pretty exhilarating in a way, and friendship, yeh, and selflessness, a kind of selflessness, a sense of your own worthlessness, I think, is pretty exhilarating.

One of the hardest things about being alive is being with other people.

It's better to have a malign providence than an indifferent one.

Something had been buried that was not yet dead.