INSPIRATION: I wish I'd written that

"Kiki - whom Howard had once, twenty-eight years ago, thrown over his shoulder like a light roll of carpet, to be laid down, and laid upon, in their first house for the first time - was nowadays a solid two hundred and fifty pounds, and looked twenty years his junior."
From "On Beauty," by Zadie Smith

"I do not believe that when the characteristic art and literature of a country is active and fresh I do not think that country is in its decline. There is no pulse so sure of the state of the nation as its characteristic art product which has nothing to do with its material life. And so when hats in Paris are lovely and french and everywhere then France is alright."
From "Paris France" by Gertrude Stein

"Now 'happy' is something extremely subjective. One of our sillier Zemblan proverbs says: the lost glove is happy."
From "Pale Fire," by Vladimir Nabokov