Melancholy And Utopia Are Heads And Tails

I Expected More From Literature Than From Real, Naked Life.

What Can You Say About A Guy Who Lets Himself Be Saddled With A Baby When He's Thirty-five And Losing His Hair? Love? Forget About That Till You're Past Seventy, And By Then The Parts Will Have Stopped Working Anyway.

Cemeteries Have Always Had A Lure For Me. They Are Well Kept, Free From Ambiguity, Logical, Virile, And Alive. In Cemeteries You Can Summon Up Courage And Arrive At Decisions, In Cemeteries Life Takes On Distinct Contours -- I Am Not Referring To The Borders Of The Graves -- And If You Will, A Meaning.

I Had An Uncle Who Was A Postal Official At The Polish Post Office In Gdansk. He Was One Of The Defenders Of The Polish Postal Service And, After It Capitulated, Was Shot By The Germans Under The Provisions Of Martial Law. Suddenly He Was No Longer A Member Of The Family, And We Were No Longer Allowed To Play With His Children.

If Work And Leisure Are Soon To Be Subordinated To This One Utopian Principle - Absolute Busyness - Then Utopia And Melancholy Will Come To Coincide: An Age Without Conflict Will Dawn, Perpetually Busy - And Without Consciousness.