“Some things I can never forget. I must not. Otherwise what do I have left?”

“I can only strive for what is important”

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

“As well as remembering too little, I have seen too much”

“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.”

“Things don't matter, people do”

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