"As a young man I imagined growing old would be something like feeling one has at the close of a long satisfying day: not unpleasant lassitude, always remedied by a good night's sleep. But now I know it to be the gradual revelation of one's body as nothing more than a bag of unshakeable aches. Old age is but the reduced capacity of a failing machine." pg. 3

"Where my neck and torso come together is usually a regular network of root and vein. Of late, however, I have become uncertain whether all these wires are properly attached. Some appear to have grown quite slack; one or two have come away from their housing altogether. On a bad day I worry that somewhere inside me an essential spring might have snapped, to dangle and rattle about in me for the rest of my days." pg. 7

"When a man starts...