“I am not afraid of death, which after all can't be far away. What does frighten me, though, is the halfway stage.”

“I am afraid of losing what I have already valued.”

“I am afraid of reduction. After a lifetime's independence- yes, selfish independence- I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals. I don't want to sit in my chair and be fed, much less do I want to be handed over to medical professionals.”

“Try to capture what you can't bear to be without”

“I've grieved enough for his life cut short and for mine for running on for so long with so little in it. It's weakness now, but I suppose I am crying out of a general sense of loss. Maybe I am mourning for the human condition.”

“Death preserves an ideal.”

“Death, when it's right there it doesn't seem too huge and terrible to let into your mind.”