The Land Of Embarrassment And Breakfast.

The Better You Know Someone, The Less Well You Often See Them (and The Less Well They Can Therefore Be Transferred Into Fiction). They May Be So Close As To Be Out Of Focus, And There Is No Operating Novelist To Dispel The Blur.

Early In Life, The World Divides Crudely Into Those Who Have Had Sex And Those Who Haven't. Later, Into Those Who Have Known Love, And Those Who Haven't. Later Still - At Least, If We Are Lucky (or, On The Other Hand, Unlucky) - It Divides Into Those Who Have Endured Grief, And Those Who Haven't. These Divisions Are Absolute; They Are Tropics We Cross.

I Don't Believe In God, But I Miss Him.

Later On In Life, You Expect A Bit Of Rest, Don't You? You Think You Deserve It. I Did, Anyway. But Then You Begin To Understand That The Reward Of Merit Is Not Life's Business.

His Air Of Failure Had Nothing Desperate About It; Rather, It Seemed To Stem From An Unresented Realisation That He Was Not Cut Out For Success, And His Duty Was Therefore To Ensure Only That He Failed In The Correct And Acceptable Fashion.