The Sheltering Sky

by Paul Bowles

‘No!’ cried Kit with force. ‘Dreams are so dull! Please!’

‘I know,’ said Port absently. ‘I hate it as much as you.’ ‘No, you don’t. But I think you would if you didn’t have me along to do your suffering for you.’

A journal, filled in each evening with the day’s thoughts, carefully seasoned with local colour, in which the absolute truth of the theorem he would set forth in the beginning – namely, that the difference between something and nothing is nothing – should be clearly and calmly demonstrated.

She did only the things she found herself already doing.

Here we say that life is a cliff, and you must never turn around and look back when you’re climbing. It makes you sick.’