Author Quotations: Diana Athill

This memoir of Diana Athill, celebrated writer, editor and co-publisher with Andre Deutsch in London, shares the joys, sorrows and humour of one facing mortality after a life well lived. From this perspective, she calls Elias Canetti's claim that he would live forever "plain silly," saying it's "obvious that life works in terms of species rather than individuals."

Meeting an elderly painter who has been keeping her art in a drawer, Athill observes that she's "an object lesson in the essential luck...of those born able to make things."

A dog lover who is "baffled by those who dislike them," she's too old to take on another "velvet-faced pug." This inspires thoughts about dogs. Calling them "the only animal whose emotions we can truly penetrate," she says "Dogs and humans recognize one another at a deep and uncomplicated level."

Her comment on how writers and readers connect gave me a feeling of great comfort: "I think that underneath, or alongside, a reader's conscious response to a text, whatever is needy in him is taking in whatever the text offers to assuage that need.” 

Ms. Athill's humour and wisdom on a wide variety of ordinary subjects makes me wish I could have known her from the time she was young.