Three O'Clock in the Morning: A Novel

The calanque of Morgiou, which was bigger than the others, had a marina with boats and a little fishing village.

we need to squander joy, that’s the only way not to waste it. After all, it disappears afterward anyway.

Anthropologists call it ‘magical thinking.’” “Magical thinking?” “Yes, it’s the mental mechanism by which we see meanings where there aren’t any, imagine non-existent relations of cause and effect and convince ourselves we can influence reality through our thoughts or through symbolic or ritual acts. Magical thinking is the principle behind belief

And if you cannot shape your life as you want, at least try this, as best you can: do not debase it by too much contact with the world, by too much activity and talk. Do not debase it by taking it around, dragging it with you, exposing it to the daily madness of encounters and invitations, until it becomes a bothersome stranger.

“Fitzgerald was a great writer and an unhappy man. There’s a sentence of his I often think about: ‘In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.’”

There are occasions when you need to talk, and you mustn’t take anything for granted. Then there are other occasions when you have to keep silent because there’s something intangible, something precious in the air, and your words might dispel it in an instant. These are two simple concepts. The hard part is to know when to apply one rule and when t

“Kill time, what a stupid phrase,” my father said. “We don’t need to kill it, it passes by itself; it doesn’t need any help from us.”

“I read a good phrase about the passing of time,” he said, kicking a plastic bottle. “What was it?” “It got late, very early.” I laughed, although I wasn’t old enough to fully understand the deadly accuracy and truth of that short phrase.

“The calanques are geological formations: a whole lot of inlets and cliffs just outside Marseilles. You can take a boat from the Vieux Port and make a three-hour trip.