As I look back, I see that life is like a game of solitaire and every once in a while there is a move. - James Salter

We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one — we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.

She received a letter from her father written on small sheets of lined paper. (...) There are no real friends, he warned.

Art, in a sense, is life brought to a standstill, rescued from time. The secret of making it is simple: discard everything that is good enough.