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‘You want to be what?’ ‘I want to be a success,’ he replied, and perhaps I should have heard the deep intent in his tone and been frightened by it.
‘I do not believe that Erich Ackermann was an evil man,’ he remarked at one point with a shrug. ‘Just a misguided one. What you might call a fool in love. But a fool in love at a very dangerous time.’
‘Although I must admit there are times when I think that I should only read the work of dead writers. I’m not sure that the living have very much to say any more.’
There were hundreds of reasons for spending the autumn of one’s life on the Amalfi Coast
‘That loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice?
‘Sic transit gloria mundi,’ said Gore. ‘All glory is fleeting. Erich used the same line with me once. When we were in Rome.’
‘When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.’
‘People seem to think that a life is worthless unless it’s shared with someone,’ said Maurice with a sigh. ‘But why must that be the case? I’ve been married, I know what the experience is like, and while there were certainly times when it was pleasurable there were just as many times when I wished that I was alone, not answerable to anyone, not needing to account for my every movement throughout the day.
You must remember, this is what a writer does. Uses his or her imagination. Tries to understand how it feels to be alive in a moment that never existed with a person who never lived, saying words that were never spoken aloud.’
‘Whenever a friend succeeds,’ said Theo, ‘a little something in me dies. That was Truman Capote, wasn’t it?’ ‘No, that was Gore,’ I said,
No one said anything for a few moments. I’d only been at their table a few minutes but had already managed to insult them both and make them each feel like shit, so I was beginning to feel that my work there was done. Suddenly I longed for the days before I’d met Theo, when I was just a solo drinker and rarely spoke to anyone. Life was simpler then.
