As you can hear, it’s difficult to learn another language after forty. - Edmund White

Suffering does make us more sensitive until it crushes us completely.

Being up on something is a way of dismissing it. To espouse any point of view is a danger — it might leave us stuck with last year's cause. Prized for their novelty alone, ideas, gimmicks, trends become equivalent, interchangeable.

Reading books for pleasure, of course, is the greatest joy. No need to underline, press on, try out mentally summarizing or evaluating phrases. One is free to read as a child reads — no duties, no goals, no responsibilities, no clock ticking: pure rapture.