Does History Repeat Itself, The First Time

Sometimes I Think The Purpose Of Life Is To Reconcile Us To Its Eventual Loss By Wearing Us Down, By Proving, However Long It Takes, That Life Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be.

I Remember Laughing With Relief That The Same Old Adolescent Boredom Goes On From Generation To Generation. ...the Words Took Me Back To My Own Years Of Stagnancy, And That Terrible Waiting For Life To Begin. [p. 68]

Poets Seem To Write More Easily About Love Than Prose Writers. For A Start, They Own That Flexible ‘i’…. Then Again, Poets Seem Able To Turn Bad Love – Selfish, Shitty Love – Into Good Love Poetry. Prose Writers Lack This Power Of Admirable, Dishonest Transformation. We Can Only Turn Bad Love Into Prose About Bad Love. So We Are Envious (and Slightly Distrustful) When Poets Talk To Us Of Love.

Discovering, For Example, That As Witnesses To Your Life Diminish, There Is Less Corroboration, And Therefore Less Certainty, As To What You Are Or Have Been. [p. 65]

You Get Towards The End Of Life - No, Not Life Itself, But Of Something Else: The End Of Any Likelihood Of Change In That Life. You Are Allowed A Long Moment Of Pause, Time Enough To Ask The Question: What Else Have I Done Wrong?