Very often, the mere fact that the author later died is itself already a sufficient comment on the absurdity of the eternalist pretensions inherent in his work.

There is something 'absolutely ultimate' which is going to be the right answer to one of our particularly inspired questions, is there, Dear Master?

The main problem surely is that practically everything, including thought - (including thought about transience!) - seems to be being produced on the assumption that these wonderful people here and hereabouts aren't really all going to die and go away completely.

(For which of us, tell me, has never really lived at the single most vital, most important moment of History? You, perhaps? Me?)

Or perhaps everything is fully intelligible only at ten past four in the morning?

In your ignorance, cretin, you thought the true number was a mere zero - whereas in fact it was an endless string of zeroes!

('But if I had known my life was going to be like this, Doctor, I'd have to have been somebody else already!')

I would be somebody else, but for the fact that, most unexpectedly, I turn out to be me. (And with this delightful sense of failure too!)

Oh, we would all like to be someone else, I dare say. But who?

No-one ever goes beyond himself. It is always still you, whatever it is.

A thing in ...