It shouldn’t be allowed for real memories to get mixed up in the flimsy structure of dreams because the pain it causes is unbearable. ~ Agnès Desarthe, from Chez Moi

“O’Neil’s Wharf” (1913, oil on composition board)
by Edwin Dickinson

 

                   

How come we live several different lives? Maybe I’m generalizing a bit. Maybe I’m the only one who feels like this. I will only die once and yet, during the time I’m allotted, I will have lived a series of related but clearly distinct existences.

At thirty, I wasn’t the same person I am now. At eight, I was a very individual little thing. I see my adolescence as quite autonomous in relation to what followed. The woman I am now is rootless, unattached, incomprehensibly alone. I used to have lots of people round me. I had become very sociable. Initially I was shy, then reserved, then sensible . . . finally mad.

 ~ Agnès Desarthe, from Chez Moi

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