"I am truly sorry," said the philosopher. "Did you ever seek help for yourself?"
"What do you mean?"
"For your infirmity of being bored."
"My infirmity?" asked the woman, again surprised.
"Ah," said the philosopher, "You attribute your boredom to others or to external circumstances."
"Well, of course," she said.
"In that case, I am sorry for your two infirmities."
"But I want to get as much out of life as I can," the woman protested. "You philosophers all say that one's life does not consist in material things because they disappear, but what then can I gain that I can keep?"
"The only thing that you can really keep—and keep forever—is what you give away," said the philosopher.
Late one afternoon a blunt young man came up to The Man Who Talked Backwards and asked him, "Now that you are old and about to drop dead, do you look forward to death or fear it—or perhaps I should ask, Did you live a good life or a bad one?"