I Have Never Been Able To Resist

Books Wrote Our Life Story, And As They Accumulated On Our Shelves (and On Our Windowsills, And Underneath Our Sofa, And On Top Of Our Refrigerator), They Became Chapters In It Themselves.

Muses Are Fickle, And Many A Writer, Peering Into The Voice, Has Escaped Paralysis By Ascribing The Creative Responsibility To A Talisman: A Lucky Charm, A Brand Of Paper, But Most Often A Writing Instrument. Am I Writing Well? Thank My Pen. Am I Writing Badly? Don't Blame Me Blame My Pen. By Such Displacements Does The Fearful Imagination Defend Itself.

I Have Always Felt That The Action Most Worth Watching Is Not At The Center Of Things But Where Edges Meet. I Like Shorelines, Weather Fronts, International Borders. There Are Interesting Frictions And Incongruities In These Places, And Often, If You Stand At The Point Of Tangency, You Can See Both Sides Better Than If You Were In The Middle Of Either One.

When The Irish Novelist John Mcgahern Was A Child, His Sisters Unlaced And Removed One Of His Shoes While He Was Reading. He Did Not Stir. They Placed A Straw Hat On His Head. No Response. Only When They Took Away The Wooden Chair On Which He Was Sitting Did He, As He Puts It, 'wake Out Of The Book'.

...the Reader Who Plucks A Book From Her Shelf Only Once Is As Deprived As The Listener Who, After Attending A Single Performance Of A Beethoven Symphony, Never Hears It Again.