Loving Humanity Means As Much, And As

When You Read A Great Book, You Don't Escape From Life, You Plunge Deeper Into It.

Did You Know That There Is No Exact Rhyme In The Russian Language For The Word 'pravda'? Ponder And Weigh This Insufficiency In Your Mind. Doesn't That Just Echo Down The Canyons Of Your Soul?

We Thought We Were Being Mature When We Were Only Being Safe. We Imagined We Were Being Responsible But Were Only Being Cowardly. What We Called Realism Turned Out To Be A Way Of Avoiding Things Rather Than Facing Them.

Life Is Like Invading Russia. A Blitz Start, Massed Shakos, Plumes Dancing Like A Flustered Henhouse; A Period Of Svelte Progress Recorded In Ebullient Despatches As The Enemy Falls Back; Then The Beginning Of A Long, Morale-sapping Trudge With Rations Getting Shorter And The First Snowflakes Upon Your Face. The Enemy Burns Moscow And You Yield To General January, Whose Fingernails Are Very Icicles. Bitter Retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually You Fall Beneath A Boy-gunner's Grapeshot While Crossing Some Polish River Not Even Marked On Your General's Map.

Poets Seem To Write More Easily About Love Than Prose Writers. For A Start, They Own That Flexible ‘i’…. Then Again, Poets Seem Able To Turn Bad Love – Selfish, Shitty Love – Into Good Love Poetry. Prose Writers Lack This Power Of Admirable, Dishonest Transformation. We Can Only Turn Bad Love Into Prose About Bad Love. So We Are Envious (and Slightly Distrustful) When Poets Talk To Us Of Love.