Then I Buckled Up My Shoes, And

Any Real Change Implies The Breakup Of The World As One Has Always Known It, The Loss Of All That Gave One An Identity, The End Of Safety.

It Was Books That Taught Me That The Things That Tormented Me Most Were The Very Things That Connected Me With All The People Who Were Alive, Or Who Had Ever Been Alive.

One Is Responsible To Life: It Is The Small Beacon In That Terrifying Darkness From Which We Come And To Which We Shall Return.

In Overlooking, Denying, Evading This Complexity--which Is Nothing More Than The Disquieting Complexity Of Ourselves--we Are Diminished And We Perish; Only Within This Web Of Ambiguity, Paradox, This Hunger, Danger, Darkness, Can We Find At Once Ourselves And The Power That Will Free Us From Ourselves. It Is This Power Of Revelation That Is The Business Of The Novelist, This Journey Toward A More Vast Reality Which Must Take Precedence Over Other Claims.

This Is The Charged, The Dangerous Moment, When Everything Must Be Re-examined, Must Be Made New, When Nothing At All Can Be Taken For Granted.