Boyd, William

William Boyd’s masterful new novel tells, in a series of intimate journals, the story of Logan Mountstuart—writer, lover, art dealer, spy—as he makes his often precarious way through the twentieth century.

A Novel

Any Human Heart

sina (she/her) 

Are there aspects of our lives things we do, feel and think - that we daren't confess, even to ourselves, even in the absolute privacy of our private record?

The Christmas tree must surely be the saddest and most vulgar object invented by mankind. 

Are our lives just the aggregate of the lies we've told? ('Lives' - the 'v' is silent.) Is it possible to live reasonably without lying? Do lies form the natural foundation of all human relationships, the thread that stitches our individual selves together?

Why do politicians love uniforms? - all these funny little men in Europe in their pantomime costumes.

Is that a good definition of marking the ageing watershed? That moment when you realize - quite rationally, quite unemotionally - that the world in the not-so-far-distant future will not contain you: that the trees you planted will continue growing but you will not be there to see them.

Well, look at me, I said, beginning to list my misfortunes. Who gives a shit about you? she said. You'll be fine, you always have been. It's me I'm worried about. 

That's all your life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience. Everything is explained by that simple formula. 

Any Human Heart quotes

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