Nobody who really thinks about history can take politics altogether seriously. - Susan Sontag

To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck.

Feeling of discontinuity as a person. My various selves — how do they all come together? And anxiety at moments of transition from one “role” to another. Will I make it fifteen minutes from now? Be able to step into, inhabit the person I’m supposed to be? This is felt as an infinitely hazardous leap, no matter how often it’s successfully executed.

The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes.