The Ways In Which A Book, Once

I Know This Much: That There Is Objective Time, But Also Subjective Time, The Kind You Wear On The Inside Of Your Wrist, Next To Where The Pulse Lies. And This Personal Time, Which Is The True Time, Is Measured In Your Relationship To Memory.

In An Oppressive Society The Truth-telling Nature Of Literature Is Of A Different Order, And Sometimes Valued More Highly Than Other Elements In A Work Of Art.

When We're Young, Everyone Over The Age Of Thirty Looks Middle-aged, Everyone Over Fifty Antique. And Time, As It Goes By, Confirms That We Weren't That Wrong. Those Little Age Differentials, So Crucial And So Gross When We Are Young Erode. We End Up All Belonging To The Same Category, That Of The Non-young. I've Never Much Minded This Myself.

But I’ve Been Turning Over In My Mind The Question Of Nostalgia, And Whether I Suffer From It. I Certainly Don’t Get Soggy At The Memory Of Some Childhood Knickknack; Nor Do I Want To Deceive Myself Sentimentally About Something That Wasn’t Even True At The Time—love Of The Old School, And So On. But If Nostalgia Means The Powerful Recollection Of Strong Emotions—and A Regret That Such Feelings Are No Longer Present In Our Lives—then I Plead Guilty.

I Have An Instinct For Survival, For Self-preservation.