If novelists truly wanted to simulate the delta of lfe's possibilities, this is what they'd do. At the back of the book would be a set of sealed envelopes in various colours. Each would be clearly mar...
I think I have an instinct for survival, for self-preservation. Perhaps this is what Veronica called cowardice and I called being peaceable.
Cooking is the transformation of uncertainty (the recipe) into certainty (the dish) via fuss.
But that was the nature of relationships: there always seemed to be an imbalance of one sort of another. And it was fine to plan an emotional strategy, but another thing when the ground opened up in f...
Because just as all political and historical change sooner or later disappoints, so does adulthood. So does life. Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by weari...
And that's a life, isn't it? Some achievements and some disappointments. It's been interesting to me, though I wouldn't complain or be amazed if others found it less so. Maybe, in a way, Adrian knew w...
And no, it wasn't shame I now felt, or guilt, but something rarer in my life and stronger than both: remorse. A feeling which is more complicated, curdled, and primeval. Whose chief characteristic is...
And he was not angry. But, before the pain set in, he had the time to be rueful. He had laid everything out, the best of himself, and it had not been enough. He had considered himself a bohemian, but...
An English silence—one in which all the unspoken words are perfectly understood by both parties—prevailed. I got into my bed and wept. The matter was never referred to again.
After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own w...
Και οι δυο λένε Σ'αγαπώ για να διώξουν τον φόβο, για να πεισθούν από τα λόγια για τα έργα, για να βεβαιωθούν ότι έχει επέλθει η πολυπόθητη κατάσταση, για να ξεγελάσουν τους εαυτούς τους με την ιδέα ότ...
Perhaps the sweetest moment in writing is the arrival of that idea for a book which never has to be written, which is never sullied with a definite shape, which never needs to be exposed to a less lov...
He couldn't believe how falling love with Martha made things simpler. No, that wasn't the right word, unless 'simpler' also included the sense of richer, denser, more complicated, with focus and echo....
Ξαναγυρίζεις εκεί απ'όπου ξεκίνησες. Έκανα 240.000 μίλια για να δω το φεγγάρι -κι αυτό που άξιζε πραγματικά να δω ήταν η γη.
Καθώς μετακινούμαι και ακουμπάω το καλάμι μου πάνω σε μια γάμπα που ο ύπνος έχει χαλαρώσει τους μυς της, εκείνη αισθάνεται τι κάνω και χωρίς να ξυπνήσει απλώνει το αριστερό της χέρι, παίρνει τα μαλλιά...
Ζούμε στην επιφάνεια, στη γη, κι όμως -γι' αυτό- οι βλέψεις μας είναι υψιπετείς. Ενώ σερνόμαστε στο έδαφος, απλώνουμε καμιά φορά το χέρι ψηλά φτάνοντας μέχρι τους θεούς. Μερικοί πετούν στον ουρανό με...
The history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest, and yet it’s the most deliquescent. We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isn’t...
It may seem bad, Geoffrey, but you’ll come out of it. I’m not taking your grief lightly; it’s just that I’ve seen enough of life to know that you’ll come out of it.’ The words you’ve said yourself whi...
It had all begun, very precisely, he told his mind, on the morning of the 28th of January 1936, at Arkhangelsk railway station. No, his mind responded, nothing begins just like that, on a certain date...
If you saved yourself, you might also save those around you, those you loved. And since you would do anything in the world to save those you loved, you did anything in the world to save yourself. And...