“The whole experience reminded me of my own 'old lady' phase that I went through in high school while I was reading Somerset Maugham... The embroidered sweaters, the costume jewelry... I remember genuinely WANTING to be old then, to act as if the business of my life was already all but over, and that I was preternaturally wise because of it...God, the stupid things you'll do to try and meet boys...”

“It was through eavesdropping that I learned that you could buy fresh peanut butter at Whole Foods from a machine that grinds it in front of you. I had wasted so much of my life eating stupid old, already-ground peanut butter. So, yeah, I highly recommend a little nosiness once in a while.”

“It was the excitement, the richness of the whole experience, the mixture of pleasure and danger and freedom and the sun. You know, when we came back here, for a long while I still went on living in Euphoria inside my head. Outwardly I returned to my old routine. I got up in the morning, put on a tweed suit, read the Guardian over breakfast, walked into the University, gave the same old tutorials on the same old texts... and all the while I was leading a completely different life inside my head. Inside my head, I had decided not to come back to England, so I was waking up in Plotinus, sitting in the sun in my happi-coat, looking out over the Bay, putting on Levis and a sports shirt, reading the Euphoric Times over breakfast, and wondering what would happen today, would there be a protest, a demonstration, would my class have to fight their way through teargas and picket lines or should we meet off-campus in somebody's apartment, sitting on the floor surrounded by posters and leaflets and paperbacks about encounter groups and avant garde theatre and Viet Nam.”

“I once read somewhere that Sean Connery left school at the age of 13 and later went on to read Proust and Finnegans Wake and I keep expecting to meet an enthusiastic school leaver on the train, the type of person who only ever reads something because it is marvellous (and so hated school). Unfortunately the enthusiastic school leavers are all minding their own business.”

“The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.”

“The Little Boy and the Old ManSaid the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."Said the old man, "I do that too."The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."I do that too," laughed the little old man.Said the little boy, "I often cry."The old man nodded, "So do I."But worst of all," said the boy, "it seemsGrown-ups don't pay attention to me."And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.I know what you mean," said the little old man.”