Malvoli-OH!

“these matters be kings' games, as it were stage plays, and for the more part played upon scaffolds”

'I used to have a magpie when I was a child. I caught it myself.'

She says, 'I cannot imagine you as a child.'

He thinks, neither can I. I cannot picture myself.

- The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel

He never lives in a single reality, but in a shifting shadow-mesh of diplomatic possibilities.

But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It's not as if we had a choice.

A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

"What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss? . . . Give me one kiss, and I'll give it thee again, and one for interest, if thou wilt have twain."