It Is Difficult To Undo

I Am A Frayed And Nibbled Survivor In A Fallen World, And I Am Getting Along. I Am Aging And Eaten And Have Done My Share Of Eating Too.

When I First Read The Words 'introvert' And 'extrovert' When I Was 10, I Thought I Was Both.

I Like To Be Aware Of A Book As A Piece Of Writing, And Aware Of Its Structure As A Product Of Mind, And Yet I Want To Be Able To See The Represented World Through It. I Admire Artists Who Succeed In Dividing My Attention More Or Less Evenly Between The World Of Their Books And The Art Of Their Books . . . So That A Reader May Study The Work With Pleasure As Well As The World That It Describes.

Noticing And Remembering Everything Would Trap Bright Scenes To Light And Fill The Blank And Darkening Past Which Was Already Piling Up Behind Me. The Growing Size Of That Blank And Ever-darkening Past Frightened Me; It Loomed Beside Me Like A Hole In The Air And Battened On Scraps Of My Life I Failed To Claim. If One Day I Forgot To Notice My Life, And Be Damned Grateful For It, The Blank Cave Would Suck Me Up Entire.

The World Is Wider In All Directions, More Dangerous And Bitter, More Extravagant And Bright. We Are Making Hay When We Should Be Making Whoopee; We Are Raising Tomatoes When We Should Be Raising Cain And Lazarus.