But Life Never Lets You Go, Does

Every Love Story Is A Potential Grief Story.

When You Read A Great Book, You Don’t Escape From Life, You Plunge Deeper Into It. There May Be A Superficial Escape – Into Different Countries, Mores, Speech Patterns – But What You Are Essentially Doing Is Furthering Your Understanding Of Life’s Subtleties, Paradoxes, Joys, Pains And Truths. Reading And Life Are Not Separate But Symbiotic.

Is Despair Wrong? Isn’t It The Natural Condition Of Life After A Certain Age? … 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 Worth. Soft Cheeses Collapse; Firm Cheeses Endurate. Both Go Mouldy.

It Took Me Some Years To Clear My Head Of What Paris Wanted Me To Admire About It, And To Notice What I Preferred Instead. Not Power-ridden Monuments, But Individual Buildings Which Tell A Quieter Story: The Artist's Studio, Or The Belle Epoque House Built By A Forgotten Financier For A Just-remembered Courtesan.

He Didn’t Really Like Travel, Of Course. He Liked The Idea Of Travel, And The Memory Of Travel, But Not Travel Itself.