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Unexpected events had brought me graveside: when I was thirty-two, my fifty-seven-year-old mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It wasn’t genetic; no one knew why she got it. We would, the doctors said, have three to nine more years with her. Everything wobbled. This knowledge raised questions ag…

No less sad than seeing the person we love grow old and die is the discovery that our lover is betraying us or has stopped loving us. Subject to time, change and death, love can also fall victim to boredom. Living together day after day, if lovers lack imagination, can bring the most intense love t…

Youth is the time of love. But there are old young people incapable of love – not because of sexual impotence but from an aridity of soul. There are also young old people who fall in love – some are ridiculous, some pathetic and some sublime. But can we love a body that has grown old or been disfig…

There is no remedy for time. Or, at least, we do not know what it is. But we must trust in the flow of time, we must live. The body ages because it is time, as does everything that exists on this earth. I am well aware that we have succeeded in prolonging life and youth. For Balzac the critical age…

Clarke’s words represent a widespread way of thinking, especially among scientists and engineers. I was a devoted reader of his books, which are a fascinating synthesis of science and fantasy. With pleasure and nostalgia I remember a sun-filled afternoon more than thirty years ago: I saw him sittin…