It seemed to me then that to have published a book - any kind of book - would be the greatest possible happiness I could ask from life. - Christopher Isherwood

Waking up begins with am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and therefrom deduced I am, I am now.

Everything in the room is like that: unnecessarily solid, abnormally heavy and dangerously sharp.

Cambridge exceeded our most macabre expectations ... the arm-chairs, the crumpets, the beautifully-bound eighteenth century volumes, the fires roaring in stoked grates. Each of us had the loan of an absent undergraduate's rooms - bedroom, sitting-room and pantry; all fitted up in a style which, after the spartan simplicity of a public school study, seemed positively sinful.