...life Is A Gift Bestowed Without Anyone

When You Read A Great Book, You Don’t Escape From Life, You Plunge Deeper Into It. There May Be A Superficial Escape – Into Different Countries, Mores, Speech Patterns – But What You Are Essentially Doing Is Furthering Your Understanding Of Life’s Subtleties, Paradoxes, Joys, Pains And Truths. Reading And Life Are Not Separate But Symbiotic.

That's One Of The Central Problems Of History, Isn't It, Sir? The Question Of Subjective Versus Objective Interpretation, The Fact That We Need To Know The History Of The Historian In Order To Understand The Version That Is Being Put In Front Of Us.

Great Books Are Readable Anyway. Dickens Is Readable. Jane Austen Is Readable. John Updike's Readable. Hawthorne's Readable. It's A Meaningless Term. You Have To Go The Very Extremes Of Literature, Like Joyce's "finnegan's Wake," Before You Get A Literary Work That Literally Unreadable.

Love May Not Lead Where We Think Or Hope, But Regardless Of Outcome It Should Be A Call To Seriousness And Truth. If It Is Not That - If It Is Not Moral In Its Effect - Then Love Is No More Than An Exaggerated Form Of Pleasure.

A Pier Is A Disappointed Bridge; Yet Stare At It For Long Enough And You Can Dream It To The Other Side Of The Channel.