“I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all.”

“Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far myexperience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense ofdetachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it allfrom the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time,out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feelingwas very strong upon me that night. Here was another side to mydream.”

“From quite early on, I had this idea of compartmentalized identities - 'this is how you are when you are with your mum, and this is how you are when you are with your dad' - so it seemed like I could never absolutely be myself. And the image of myself as compromised and inconsistent made me want to withdraw from the world even further. I had a sense of formulating a paper-mache version of myself to send out in the world, while I sat controlling it remotely from some smug suburban barracks.”

“From things about to disappear I turn away in time. To watch them out of sight, no, I can't do it.”

“I found out when I went away from Wythorpe the first time in November--remember? How nice it is to rhyme, I must do it all the time.”

“As a jealous man, I suffer four times over: because I am jealous, because I blame myself for being so, because I fear that my jealousy will wound the other, because I allow myself to be subject to a banality: I suffer from being excluded, from being aggressive, from being crazy, and from being common.”