Yasmina Reza

Today I’m sixty-two years old. I can’t say I’ve figured out how to be happy in life, I couldn’t give myself a score of fourteen out of twenty when I come to die, like that colleague of Pierre’s who said “Well— maybe fourteen out of twenty,” I’d give myself maybe a twelve, because less would look ungrateful or hurt someone, I’d cheat and say twelve out of twenty. When I’m in the ground what difference will it make? Nobody will care whether or not I managed to be happy in life, and I won’t much care either.

And that somebody did something that deprived him of his high spirits

It’s all over for me, I give up.”

I sensed that JeanLino Manoscrivi was lonely.

His first wife had left him after the restaurant failed.

petrified on that uncomfortable chair,

sent out forty or so invitations. I immediately regretted it.

Who knows what murky, and perhaps long-ago, confluence of circumstances governed the business?

My anxiety attacks had exhausted me and the party loomed like a punishment.

that look of delight entirely gone now, the way he probably was just before I turned up.