The journal preserved her dignity; she might look and behave like and live the life of a trained nurse, but she was really an important writer in disguise. And at a time when she was cut off from everything she knew – family, home, friends – writing was the thread of continuity. It was what she had always done.
But the crowded recent past can be difficult to recall.
She resented the way she was listening out for him, her attention poised, holding its breath, for the creak of the door or a floorboard. Wanting it, dreading it.
And there was something I’ve since noticed over the years – the mountain range that separates the naked from the clothed man. Two men on one passport.
Los relatos no se venden. Los editores suelen hacer estas colecciones como un favor a sus autores consagrados.
Ci si misura rapportandosi agli altri, non esiste alternativa. Di quando in quando, in modo assolutamente involontario, arriva qualcuno e ti insegna qualcosa sul tuo conto.
He leaves behind in the library a field of resonating sadness, an imagined shape, a disappointed hologram still in possession of his chair.
Your reputation will rest only on this, because ultimately reality is social, it’s among others that we have to live and their judgments matter.
In those first moments it was easier to conceal a confusion of feeling behind a motherly tone.
Certain artists in print or paint flourish, like babies-to-be, in confined spaces.
Beyond all their hopes for a sane, just world free of war and class oppression, they feel that belonging to the Party associates them with all that is youthful, lively, intelligent and daring.
So what’s the use of a headache, a heartache? What am I being warned against, or told what to do? Don’t let your incestuous uncle and mother poison your father. Don’t waste your precious days idle and inverted. Get born and act!
El amor sufre luengo y es amable; el amor no envidia; el amor no se jacta, no es pomposo, no se comporta de una forma indecorosa, no busca su provecho, no se deja provocar, no medita maldades; se deleita no en la iniquidad, sino en la verdad...
I write from life. But the reader, you know, imports the symbols, the associations. I can’t keep them out. That’s how poetry works.
I made the enthusiast’s mistake of assuming that everyone shared my previous ignorance.
A gated community of a historical sort, a fortress of barristers and judges who were also musicians, wine fanciers, would-be writers, fly fishermen and raconteurs. A nest of gossip and expertise, and a delightful garden still haunted by the reasonable spirit of Francis Bacon. She loved it here and never wanted to leave.
He speaks in a quiet, breathy tone, exaggeratedly slow. Where do we learn such tricks? Are they inscribed, along with the rest of our emotional repertoire? Or do we get them from the movies? He says, “Look, there’s this problem out there” – he gestures to the window – “and all I wanted from you was your support and help.
But when I was an energetic self-important 10-year-old and found myself in a roomful of grownups, I felt guilty, and thought it only polite to conceal the fun I was having elsewhere. When an aged figure addressed me – they were all aged – I worried that what showed in my face was pity.
And this was to be his main point – there was one overriding reason for our failure, which was the lack of coordinated intelligence. Too many agencies, too many bureaucracies defending their corners, too many points of demarcation, insufficient centralized control.
The reason he wouldn’t be drawn into political or even theological debate was that he was indifferent to other people’s opinions and felt no urge to engage with or oppose them.