At One Magical Instant In Your Early

If The Book Is Second-hand, I Leave All Its Markings Intact, The Spoor Of Previous Readers, Fellow-travellers Who Have Recorded Their Passage By Means Of Scribbled Comments, A Name On The Fly-leaf, A Bus Ticket To Mark A Certain Page.

My Books Hold Between Their Covers Every Story I've Ever Known And Still Remember, Or Have Now Forgotten, Or May One Day Read; They Fill The Space Around Me With Ancient And New Voices.

At Night, Here In The Library, The Ghosts Have Voices.... The Various Qualities Of My Readings Seem To Permeate My Every Muscle, So That When I Finally Decide To Turn Off The Library Light, I Carry Into My Sleep The Voices And The Movements Of The Book I've Just Closed.

It Hardly Matters Why A Library Is Destroyed: Every Banning, Curtailment, Shredding, Plunder Or Loot Gives Rise (at Least As A Ghostly Presence) To A Louder, Clearer, More Durable Library Of The Banned, Looted, Plundered, Shredded Or Curtailed.

I Can Understand That There Are Those Who Can Think And Imagine The World Without Words, But I Think That Once You Find The Words That Name Your Experience, Then Suddenly That Experience Becomes Grounded, And You Can Use It And You Can Try To Understand It.