It seemed to me that we ought occasionally to be reminded of instability beneath our feet.
Insofar as I liked doing things by myself, it was partly for the pleasure of telling her about them afterwards.
If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything.
I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own.
I'd read somewhere that if you want to make people pay attention to what you're saying, you don't raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention.
I was also, slowly, to learn that there were painters whom you grew out of (like the Pre-Raphaelites); painters you grew into (Chardin); painters towards whom you had a lifelong, sighing indifference...
I used to think I knew all the answers...That's why I left. I know what to do, I thought. Perhaps you have to persuade yourself you know the answers, otherwise you don't ever do anything. I thought I...
I thought of writing books myself once. I had the ideas; I even made notes. But I was a doctor, married with children. You can only do one thing well: Flaubert knew that.
I don’t want you to be a woman of mystery. I think I’d hate it. Either it’s just a façade, a game, a technique for ensnaring men, or else the woman of mystery is a mystery even to herself, and that’s...
He was too clever. If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything. You just leave common sense behind.
Had he been naive, or overambitious? Both, probably. In life, you might be a bohemian and an adventurer, but you also sought a pattern, an arrangement to help you through, even if -- even as -- you ki...
God damn it, he was thinking, this dying business is difficult. They just won’t let you get on with it, not on your own terms, anyway. You have to die on other people’s terms, and that’s a bore, love...
Flaubert teaches you to gave upon the truth and not blink from its consequences; he teaches you, with Montaigne, to sleep on the pillow of doubt; he teaches you to dissect out the constituent parts of...
First love fixes a life for ever: this much I have discovered over the years.
Everything you wanted to say required a context. If you gave the full context, people thought you a rambling old fool. If you didn’t give the context, people thought you a laconic old fool.
Every love story is a potential grief story. If not at first, then later. If not for one, then for the other. Sometimes, for both. So why do we constantly aspire to love? because love is the meeting p...
But I’ve been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don’t get soggy at the memory of some childhood knickknack; nor do I want to deceive myself s...
Being a hero was much easier than being a coward. To be a hero, you only had to be brave for a moment - when you took out the gun, threw the bomb, pressed the detonator, did away with the tyrant, and...
And what percentage of people take up the option to die off?’ She looked at me, her glance telling me to be calm. ‘Oh, a hundred per cent, of course. Over many thousands of years, calculated by old ti...
And this is where the Silent Ones cause further offense. They do not understand (how could they?) that they have a new function in your life. You need your friends not just as friends, but also as cor...