All Bad Things Are Exaggerated

You Can Put It Another Way, Of Course; You Always Can.

And That's A Life, Isn't It? Some Achievements And Some Disappointments. It's Been Interesting To Me, Though I Wouldn't Complain Or Be Amazed If Others Found It Less So. Maybe, In A Way, Adrian Knew What He Was Doing. Not That I Would Have Missed My Own Life For Anything, You Understand. [pp.60-61]

When We're Young, Everyone Over The Age Of Thirty Looks Middle-aged, Everyone Over Fifty Antique. And Time, As It Goes By, Confirms That We Weren't That Wrong. Those Little Age Differentials, So Crucial And So Gross When We Are Young Erode. We End Up All Belonging To The Same Category, That Of The Non-young. I've Never Much Minded This Myself.

When You’re Young You Prefer The Vulgar Months, The Fullness Of The Seasons. As You Grow Older You Learn To Like The In-between Times, The Months That Can’t Make Up Their Minds. Perhaps It’s A Way Of Admitting That Things Can’t Ever Bear The Same Certainty Again.

And No, It Wasn't Shame I Now Felt, Or Guilt, But Something Rarer In My Life And Stronger Than Both: Remorse. A Feeling Which Is More Complicated, Curdled, And Primeval. Whose Chief Characteristic Is That Nothing Can Be Done About It: Too Much Time Has Passed, Too Much Damage Has Been Done, For Amends To Be Made.