When I joined the Sunday Times the people I was competing with were all 10 or 15 years younger, they all had double firsts from Oxford or Cambridge, they were all bright as new pins.
You have to remember that I was a bright but simple fellow from Canada who seldom, if ever, met another writer, and then only a so-called literary type that occasionally sold a story and meanwhile worked in an office for a living.
The philosophy of the school was quite simple - the bright boys specialised in Latin, the not so bright in science and the rest managed with geography or the like.
Being around some of the bright lights of the technology world and having them expect great things helps you sit down and do it seriously.
Somewhere between this kind of cruising freedom, and this understated moment where all these little things intertwine to create a bigger sound. You don't want one thing to be bright, or too prevalent.
My prospects for life, though in a measure shaded with uncertainty, hardship and danger, are very animating and bright. My prospects for another life, blessed be God, are still brighter.
I suppose they think me an old man and imagine it is nothing for one like me to resign a life so full of trials. But I am not old - at least in that sense; you know I am not. Oh, no man ever left the world with more inviting prospects, with brighter hopes, or warmer feelings - warmer feelings.
When I play under bright lights on TV, the reflection off the dart barrel could be distracting. It's not high-tech stuff but I use the flame from the gas cooker at home to blacken the metal and dull them.
That's what people are who have that impact on us. They are ahead of their time. They can't help it. They get put into a small, frail body, and they are given a light that is much too bright for that cavity.
When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist.
