Last night I walked into the office and read this to Gene, from Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse: “Perhaps it was my life, my quiet scholarly life, immersed in books, shut off from the world, that was the wasted one. Life at second hand. Be honest now, was I getting kicks out of life? A very unfamiliar idea! The truth was, of course, that I didn’t want kicks. But there again, perhaps I ought to?”
Gene looked at me for a minute. “Well?”
“Well, that’s me!” I said. “I just sit around reading books and don’t have any kicks. And I don’t want any kicks. But I should want kicks, shouldn’t I?”
Gene screwed his face up in honest bewilderment. “Who wants to be kicked?” he said.