Shame!

Luke looked across at a young man busy writing in a notebook and felt sorry for him: he had only his book for company - even his coffee-cup was empty.

- Dyer, Paris Trance

Trajectory

Something very rare but a thing to take delight in: a man with a finely constituted intellect, who has the character, the inclinations, and also the experiences appropriate to such an intellect.

- Nietzsche*

The problem is to acquire that knowledge of life (or rather to have lived) which goes beyond the mere ability to write. So that in the last analysis the great artist is first and foremost a man who has lived greatly (it being understood that in this case living also implies thinking about life - that living is in fact precisely this subtle relationship between experience and our awareness of it).

- Camus, notebooks*

... Luke came to Paris with the intention of writing a book based on his experiences of living.... As far as I know, he made absolutely no progress with this book, abandoning it... in the instant that he began leading the life intended to serve as its research...

- Geoff Dyer, Paris Trance (p1)

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* quoted in Dyer, intro to Selected Essays of John Berger