In The End, The Only

There Is Something Elegantly Sinister About The Rolling Stones. They Sit Before You At A Press Conference Like Five Unfolding Switchblades; Their Faces Set In Rehearsed Snarls; Their Hair Studiously Unkempt And Matted; Their Clothes Part Of Some Private Conceit; And The Way They Walk And Talk And The Songs They Sing All Become Part Of Some Long Mean Reach For The Jugular.

What Libraries Give You Is All Three Tenses - The Past Tense - The Present Tense In Which We Live And The Future That We Can Only Imagine. These Places Have Teachers Who Are Living And Dead And We Are Lucky To Have Them. If I Sit Here And Read Aristotle, He Is Speaking To Me Across A Thousand Years - More Than A Thousand Years. That Sense That I Am In The Company Of The Great Greatest People Who Ever Lived Is A Humbling Experience But A Liberating Experience.

The Goal Is To Be Both Disciplined And Loose, So That The Writing Does Not Turn Into A Task Or A Chore. To Leave Myself Behind, Along With The Mechanics, And Disappear Into The Lives Of My Characters.

Say What You Will About Him Ed Koch Is Still The Best Show In Town.

The Only Way To Fight Nostalgia Is To Listen To Somebody Else's Nostalgia