He had his life — it was not worth much — not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage, he thought, if I had ha… - James Salter

And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see.

January. She drove to the city early, a cold day, the pavements were frozen, the pigeons huddled in the R'S of a FURNITURE sign. The city is a cathedral of possessions; its scent is dreams. Even those who have been rejected by it cannot leave.

Strauss's, for instance, which begins in the heavens. The artist doesn't ascend to glory, he appears in it, he already has it and the world is prepared to recognize him. Meteoric, like a comet — those are the phrases we apply, and it's true, it is a kind of burning. It makes them highly visible, and at the same time it consumes them, and it's only afterwards, when the brilliance is gone, when their bones are lying alongside those of lesser men, that one can really judge. I mean, there are famous works, renowned in antiquity, and today absolutely forgotten: books, buildings, works of art.