At Sixty-three Years Of Age,

In The Matter Of Furnishing, I Find A Certain Absence Of Ugliness Far Worse Than Ugliness.

To Write Is To Pour One’s Innermost Self Passionately Upon The Tempting Paper, At Such Frantic Speed That Sometimes One’s Hand Struggles And Rebels, Overdriven By The Impatient God Which Guides It - And To Find, Next Day, In Place Of The Golden Bough That Bloomed Miraculously In That Dazzling Hour, A Withered Bramble And A Stunted Flower.

If I Can't Have Too Many Truffles, I'll Do Without Truffles.

A Few Days Later, I Found My Mother Beneath The Tree, Motionless With Excitement, Her Head Turned Toward The Heavens In Which She Would Allow Human Religions No Place.

I Went To Collect The Few Personal Belongings Which...i Held To Be Invaluable: My Cat, My Resolve To Travel, And My Solitude.