The middle years, caught between children and parents, free of neither: the past stretches back too densely, it is too thickly populated, the future … - Margaret Drabble

The human mind can bear plenty of reality but not too much unintermittent gloom.

Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.

I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg.