If You’re That Clever You Can Argue

I Dreamt That I Woke Up. It's The Oldest Dream Of All, And I've Just Had It

(on Grief) And You Do Come Out Of It, That’s True. After A Year, After Five. But You Don’t Come Out Of It Like A Train Coming Out Of A Tunnel, Bursting Through The Downs Into Sunshine And That Swift, Rattling Descent To The Channel; You Come Out Of It As A Gull Comes Out Of An Oil-slick. You Are Tarred And Feathered For Life.

You Can't Have A Novel Without Real, Believable People, And Once You Get Into Either Too Theoretical A Novel Or Too Philosophical A Novel, You Get Into The Dangers That The French Novel Has Discovered In The Past 50 Or 60 Years. And You Get Into A Sort Of Aridity. No, You Have To Have Real, Identifiable People To Whom The Reader Reacts In A Way As If They Were Real People.

The Next Day, When I Was Sober, I Thought Again About The Three Of Us, And About Time's Many Paradoxes. For Instance: That When We Are Young And Sensitive, We Are Also At Our Most Hurtful; Whereas When The Blood Begins To Slow, When We Feel Less Sharply, When We Are More Armoured And Have Learnt How To Bear Hurt, We Tread More Carefully.

You Grew Old First Not In Your Own Eyes, But In Other People's Eyes; Then, Slowly, You Agreed With Their Opinion Of You.