“It’s just life. You can’t beat life.”

“It’s bad enough that you aren’t going to be here anymore. You can’t just drop out of my life.”

“You can’t beat death butyou can beat death in life, sometimes.and the more often you learn to do it,the more light there will be.your life is your life.know it while you have it.”

“Can’t... can’t just go away. Can’t just... You can’t get on that train and charge out of my life. It’s not fair. I can’t work, dammit! I... I made a bad trade. I made a bad trade. How dare you? How dare you walk into my flat and... and then just... just walk out again? How can you even—”

“You can’t buy time, Nick. Ever. It’s the only thing in life you can’t get most of, and it’s the one thing that will mercilessly tear you up when it’s gone. It takes no pity on no soul and no heart.”

“Writing isn’t my life…it’s a lovely part of my life... but it’s not my life. My life is family, friends, fishing, food…things like reading and painting and all the rest of it, and you can’t really prioritize when you’re involved with family or you’re involved in fishing, you can’t say, ‘Oh, I really should be writing.”