‘Thus the seasons come and go, and the years pass by. I’ll age one more year, and probably finish another novel. One by one, I will face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the horizon as far ahead as I can. I am, after all, a long-distance runner’

‘The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just because there is an end does not mean existence has meaning.’