I’ve spent the last ten minutes trying to say the word “grasped” without screwing up, and I don’t think I’ve achieved it yet.
The reason for this? Well, it’s that I’m obsessed with the first sentence of this quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, some sort of 1930s French aviator/writer (man, aside from the “French” part of his title, doesn’t that seem like an ideal job?): “Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while was there still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.”
Seriously, French aviator/writer? “Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time.” How is anyone supposed to say anything better than that?
