Happiness Is Often At Its Most Intense

Normally, What You’re Envious Of Is A Book, Not A Writer: Standards, Ideas, Levels … Almost Nonexistent Things.

You Lived And Died Alone, Especially In Fighters. Fighters. Somehow, Despite Everything, That Word Had Not Become Sterile. You Slipped Into The Hollow Cockpit And Strapped And Plugged Yourself Into The Machine. The Canopy Ground Shut And Sealed You Off. Your Oxygen, Your Very Breath, You Carried Into The Chilled Vacuum, In A Steel Bottle.

You Would Have To Be Very Optimistic To Think That Any Of Your Books Will Be Among The Books That Survive In The Very Long Run. I Think If A Writer Is Lucky Enough To Still Have A Few Books Around After He's Gone, A Few That Are Still Being Read, Then He's Accomplished Quite A Lot.

One Is Seduced And Battered In Turn. The Result Is Presumably Wisdom. Wisdom! We Are Clinging To Life Like Lizards. Why Is It So Difficult To Assemble Those Things That Really Matter In Life And To Dwell Among Them Only? I Am Referring To Certain Landscapes, Persons, Beasts, Books, Rooms, Meteorological Conditions, Fruits. In Fact, I Insist On It. A Letter Is Like A Poem, It Leaps Into Life And Shows Very Clearly The Marks, Perhaps I Should Say Thumbprints, Of An Unwilling Or Unready Composer.

In Climbing, Being First-rate Is Part Of The Whole Enterprise. The Important Climbers Want To Be The First Man Up The Mountain, The One Who Put Up The First Route. You're Usually Only Remembered If You Put Up The First Route On A Very Important Climb. The Route Might Even Be Named After You. That's A Kind Of Glory.