I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise--a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames--but still a paradise.

Life is short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It is a very short walk. Make those twenty-five steps. Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after.

Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.

And I want to rise up, throw my arms open for a vast embrace, address an ample, luminous discourse to the invisible crowds. I would start like this: "O rainbow-colored gods. . .

How small the cosmos (a kangaroo's pouch would hold it), how paltry and puny in comparison to human consciousness, to a single individual recollection, and its expression in words!

Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.

I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window.… Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.