To be able to do in your mind, what is probably not a good idea to do in actuality, is a convenience not always sufficiently appreciated. Though in his daily life, he was as cheerful as a cricket, the diaries were more and more given over to dark thoughts: anger, resentment, indecencies, regrets, remorse. And now and then the simple joy in being alive. If I stopped recognizing that I want things that is not appropriate for me to want, wouldn’t this inevitably lead to my not wanting anything at all? Which, as people get older, is a risk that must be avoided at all costs.
—William Maxwell, “What He Was Like”
