I Don't Have Nightmares; I Give Them

It's Best To Be Ruthless With The Past.

I Write About Things That Scare Me. I've Never Written A Snake Story In My Life. I Myself Have Never Written A Story About Snakes Because They Don't Scare Me. I Write About Rats Because They Scare The Hell Out Of Me.

But In High School The Business Of Irrevocable Choices Began. Doors Slipped Shut With A Faint Locking Click That Was Only Heared Clearly In The Dreams Of Later Years.

It Had That Comfortably Sprung, Lived-in Look That Library Books With A Lively Circulation Always Get; Bent Page Corners, A Dab Of Mustard On Page 331, A Whiff Of Some Reader's Spilled After-dinner Whiskey On Page 468. Only Library Books Speak With Such Wordless Eloquence Of The Power Good Stories Hold Over Us, How Good Stories Abide, Unchanged And Mutely Wise, While We Poor Humans Grow Older And Slower.

The Cumulative Power Of Doing Things The Same Way Every Day Seems To Be A Way Of Saying To The Mind: You're Going To Be Dreaming Soon.