Every Love Story Is A Potential Grief

In My Terms, I Settled For The Realities Of Life, And Submitted To Its Necessities: If This, Then That, And So The Years Passed. In Adrian's Terms, I Gave Up On Life, Gave Up On Examining It, Took It As It Came. And So, For The First Time, I Began To Feel A More General Remorse - A Feeling Somewhere Between Self-pity And Self-hatred - About My Whole Life. All Of It. I Had Lost The Friends Of My Youth. I Had Lost The Love Of My Wife. I Had Abandoned The Ambitions I Had Entertained. I Had Wanted Life Not To Bother Me Too Much, And Had Succeeded - And How Pitiful That Was.

Wisdom Consists Partly In Not Pretending Anymore, In Discarding Artifice.

Why Does The Writing Make Us Chase The Writer? Why Can't We Leave Well Enough Alone? Why Aren't The Books Enough?

I Remember Laughing With Relief That The Same Old Adolescent Boredom Goes On From Generation To Generation. ...the Words Took Me Back To My Own Years Of Stagnancy, And That Terrible Waiting For Life To Begin. [p. 68]

I’ve Always Thought You Are What You Are And You Shouldn’t Pretend To Be Anyone Else. But Oliver Used To Correct Me And Explain That You Are Whoever It Is You’re Pretending To Be.