He relapsed into a silence in which his hopes scattered like mice into holes. - Paul Scott

I was surprised, as one is, I think, whenever the tenuous thread of one's life suddenly connects, as friends, people one would have thought strangers.

How ignorant one is when faced with essential practical matters. How they trick and trap you into holes and corners.

It is said that every seven years of your life you undergo a change which reflects itself in your attitude to your circumstances and to other people, and I think this may be true. If it is, then the change begins towards the end of a seven-year span, at the point, perhaps, where dissatisfaction with what you are doing and with where you are going sets in.