" Gauntlets are the stuff of every life, but when you learn, young, how to pick them up, how to work them against the demons, and, finally, how to outlast if not escape those same demons, life can seem more merciful. It’s that long, smooth, false swanning through the course of a life that seems to drive a person, sooner or later, into the wall. I never swanned through anything, but I was always grateful for the chance to keep trying to shine up things. Anyway, "

― Marlena de Blasi , A Thousand Days in Venice