Oh my life is so awful, it's just so awful to be me, you don't know what it's like waking every morning and finding the whole horror of being yoursel… - Iris Murdoch

Almost anything that consoles us is a fake.

Anything that consoles is fake.

I am, I must confess, an obsessive and superstitious letter-writer. When I am troubled I will write any long letter rather than make a telephone call. This is perhaps because I invest letters with magical power. To desiderate something in a letter is, I often irrationally feel, tantamount to bringing it about. A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance. (And, it must be admitted, of passing the buck.) It is a way of bidding time to stop.