Boys Mystified Me, Although I Dreamed Vaguely

It Was Good To Walk Into A Library Again; It Smelled Like Home.

And How Could Anyone Consent To Give Up The Smell Of Open Books, Old Or New?

Every Writer Hopes His Or Her Book Will Be Its Own Thing.

The Thing That Most Haunted Me That Day, However...was The Fact That These Things Had - Apparently - Actually Occurred...for All His Attention To My Historical Education, My Father Had Neglected To Tell Me This: History's Terrible Moments Were Real. I Understand Now, Decades Later, That He Could Never Have Told Me. Only History Itself Can Convince You Of Such A Truth. And Once You've Seen That Truth - Really Seen It - You Can't Look Away.

It's Funny; In This Era Of E-mail And Voice Mail And All Those Things That Even I Did Not Grow Up With, A Plain Old Paper Letter Takes On Amazing Intimacy.