All Male Friendships Are Essentially Quixotic: They

Every Universe, Our Own Included, Begins In Conversation. Every Golem In The History Of The World, From Rabbi Hanina's Delectable Goat To The River-clay Frankenstein Of Rabbi Judah Loew Ben Bezalel, Was Summoned Into Existence Through Language, Through Murmuring, Recital, And Kabbalistic Chitchat -- Was, Literally, Talked Into Life.

It Took Marvel Comics Years To Begin To Put Together Any Worthwhile Superheroines. The First Crop Was, To A Gal, Embarrassingly Disappointing. They Had All The Measly Powers That Fifties And Sixties Male Chauvinism Could Contrive To Bestow On A Superwoman.

It Struck Me That The Chief Obstacle To Marital Contentment Was This Perpetual Gulf Between The Well-founded, Commendable Pessimism Of Women And The Sheer Dumb Animal Optimism Of Men, The Latter A Force More Than Any Other Responsible For The Lamentable State Of The World.

A Story Begins With This Nebulous Feeling That’s Hard To Get A Hold Of And You’re Testing Your Feelings And Assumptions, Testing What You Believe. They End Up Turning Into Keepsakes And Mementos –like Amber In Which A Memory Gets Trapped.

Maybe All Wondrous Books Appear In Our Lives The Way Milo’s Tollbooth Appears, An Inexplicable Gift, Cast Up By Some Curious Chance That Comes To Feel, After We Have Finished And Fallen In Love With The Book, Like The Workings Of A Secret Purpose. Of All The Enchantments Of Beloved Books The Most Mysterious-the Most Phantasmal-is The Way They Always Seem To Come Our Way Precisely When We Need Them.