Why Can't People Be Both Flexible And

Auntie Phyl's Last Months In The Care Home Were Extra Pieces. Age Is Unnecessary. Some Of Us, Like My Mother, Are Fortunate Enough To Die Swiftly And Suddenly, In Full Possession Of Our Faculties And Our Fate, But More And More Of Us Will Be Condemned To Linger, At The Mercy Of Anxious Or Indifferent Relatives, Careless Strangers, Unwanted Medical Interventions, Increasing Debility, Incontinence, Memory Loss. We Live Too Long, But, Like The Sibyl Hanging In Her Basket In The Cave At Cumae, We Find It Hard To Die.

Our Desire To Conform Is Greater Than Our Respect For Objective Facts.

Family Life Itself, That Safest, Most Traditional, Most Approved Of Female Choices, Is Not A Sanctuary: It Is, Perpetually, A Dangerous Place.

Nothing Succeeds, They Say, Like Success. And Certainly Nothing Fails Like Failure.

Men And Women Can Never Be Close. They Can Hardly Speak To One Another In The Same Language. But Are Compelled, Forever, To Try, And Therefore Even In Defeat There Is No Peace.