“Too much thought is bad for the soul, for art, and for crime. It is also a sign of middle age.”
“No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”
“Too much self-esteem, thought Simon: the real curse of our age.”
“Bad art is always basically creepy; that is its first and most obvious identifying sign”
“What were the living dead, Wolgast thought, but a metaphor for the misbegotten march of middle age?”
“After a while the middle-aged person who lives in her head begins to talk to her soul, the kid.”