Festina Lente (hurry In Slowly)

Never Before Had I Known The Sudden Quiver Of Understanding That Travels From Word To Brain To Heart, The Way A New Language Can Move, Coil, Swim Into Life Under The Eyes, The Almost Savage Leap Of Comprehension, The Instantaneous, Joyful Release Of Meaning, The Way The Words Shed Their Printed Bodies In A Flash Of Heat And Light.

And How Could Anyone Consent To Give Up The Smell Of Open Books, Old Or New?

It's Funny; In This Era Of E-mail And Voice Mail And All Those Things That Even I Did Not Grow Up With, A Plain Old Paper Letter Takes On Amazing Intimacy.

No Book That Is Written For An External Purpose Is Going To Be A Passionately Felt Book For The Writer Or The Reader. I Don't See The Point In Doing That.

The Thing That Most Haunted Me That Day, However...was The Fact That These Things Had - Apparently - Actually Occurred...for All His Attention To My Historical Education, My Father Had Neglected To Tell Me This: History's Terrible Moments Were Real. I Understand Now, Decades Later, That He Could Never Have Told Me. Only History Itself Can Convince You Of Such A Truth. And Once You've Seen That Truth - Really Seen It - You Can't Look Away.