In retrospect, I would have to recommend against epiphanies. They are difficult on an emotional level, and they also sometimes move you to foolish and inopportune acts, which was what happened in my case.

Once again I felt light-headed, but this time it wasn't from the scent of lilacs; it was from the scent of my own death.

I guess it really had been brave . . . Because it was so bugger-all stupid, and if there was one thing I'd come to realize, ti was that bravery and bugger-all stupidity went hand in hand.

Youth believes itself immortal. There is a cure for such an attitude, but unfortunately it is a cure from which one never recovers.

There are some for whom the good of mankind is their primary concern, and others who basically put their own considerations before everyone else. I was among the latter.

Some time later, I sat in the wine cellar, staring at the walls while cradling a wineskin in my lap like a child, murmuring over and over as if lulling the child to sleep, 'I am shat upon. I am shat upon'.

Noblest. Bravest. What rot. There was no bravery in buying oneself out of difficulty.

I remember so many things [. . .] The problem is, only half of them are true . . . And the half which is true keeps changing places with the half which is false.

Lack of movement is a formidable force to overcome.

It seemed to me that, no matter what endeavor I was involved in, I was to be something of a sham.