My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do; and to me the hermaphrodite and the living… - Robertson Davies

He sets a thief to guard his purse
Who trusts a dial with his hours
Or bids a sand-glass bleed away his nights,
His days, his loves, his pleasures and his powers.
The burthen of his years
Is Time's soft footfall, Time's soft
Falling
Through his joys and tears.

"What would you do if you were me?" said Solly.

"What would I do in your place?"

"No, no; you’d do something fantastic and get farther into the soup. I want to know what you would do if you were intelligent but prudent. What would you do if you were me?"

Wit and high spirits and a sense of fun- yes, they're wonderful things. But a sense of humour- a real one- is a rarity and can be utter hell. Because it's immoral, you know, in the real sense of the word: I mean, it makes its own laws; and it possesses the person who has it like a demon. Fools talk about it as though it were the same thing as a sense of balance, but believe me, it's not. It's a sense of anarchy, and a sense of chaos. Thank God it's rare.