I dream of wayward gulls and all landless lovers, rare moments of winter sun, peace, privacy, for everyone.

All these places have their moments - with lovers and friends - I still can recall some are dead and some are living - in my life I've loved them all.

...because it is the privilige and the curse of midnight's children to be both masters and victims of their times, to forsake privacy and be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes, and to be unable to live or die in peace.

Life is also a mixture of unsolved problems, ambiguous victories and vague defeats-with very few moments of clear peace.

It isn't given for us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords.

There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — no through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion…