The Function Of A Great

Friends, Both The Imaginary Ones You Build For Yourself Out Of Phrases Taken From A Living Writer, Or Real Ones From College, And Relatives, Despite All The Waste Of Ceremony And Fakery And The Fact That Out Of An Hour Of Conversation You May Have Only Five Minutes In Which The Old Entente Reappears, Are The Only Real Means For Foreign Ideas To Enter Your Brain.

There's A Time And Place For The Kindle, And I Own One Now And Have Books On It That I Don't Otherwise Have. But I Don't Find That My Hand Reaches Out For It The Way It Does For A Trade Paperback, Or (in The Middle Of The Night) For The Ipod Touch.

If You Write Every Day, You're Going To Write A Lot Of Things That Aren't Terribly Good, But You're Going To Have Given Things A Chance To Have Their Moments Of Sprouting.

E.b. White's Essays Are The Best Things I've Read About Maine - Especially The One In Which He's Not Sure If He Can Go Out Sailing Any More In His Sloop.

Sometimes I'll Spend An Hour Writing A Tiny Email. I Work On It Until I've Created The Illusion That I've Dashed It Off In Three Minutes. If I Make A Typo, I Let It Stand. Sometimes In Fact I Correct The Typo Without Thinking, And Then I Back Up And Retype The Typo So That It'll Look More Casual. I Don't Know Why.