A Life Of Unremitting Caution, Without The

People Who Are Knowledgeable About Poetry Sometimes Discuss It In That Knowing, Rather Hateful Way In Which Oenophiles Talk About Wine: Robust, Delicate, Muscular. This Has Nothing To Do With How Most Of Us Experience It, The Heart Coming Around The Corner And Unexpectedly Running Into The Mind. Of All The Words That Have Stuck To The Ribs Of My Soul, Poetry Has Been The Most Filling.

Your Children Make It Impossible To Regret Your Past. They're Its Finest Fruits. Sometimes The Only Ones.

How Is It That, A Full Two Centuries After Jane Austen Finished Her Manuscript, We Come To The World Of Pride And Prejudice And Find Ourselves Transcending Customs, Strictures, Time, Mores, To Arrive At A Place That Educates, Amuses, And Enthralls Us? It Is A Miracle. We Read In Bed Because Reading Is Halfway Between Life And Dreaming, Our Own Consciousness In Someone Else's Mind.

Books Are The Plane, And The Train, And The Road. They Are The Destination, And The Journey. They Are Home.

The Beginning And The End Are Never Really The Journey Of Discovery For Me. It Is The Middle That Remains A Puzzle Until Well Into The Writing. That's How Life Is Most Of The Time, Isn't It? You Know Where You Are And Where You Hope To Wind Up. It's The Getting There That's Challenging.