Each Book, Intuitively Sensed And, In The

The World Is What It Is; Men Who Are Nothing, Who Allow Themselves To Become Nothing, Have No Place In It.

I Had No Student Friends To Talk To About Literature. My Tutor Was A Really Nice Man, Very Charming - But He Had No Literary Judgment.

The Writer Is All Alone.

I Often Wonder What Would Have Happened To Me If I Hadn't Made That Decision. I Suppose I Would Have Sunk. I Suppose I Would Have Found Some Kind Of Hole And Tried To Hide Or Pass. After All, We Make Ourselves According To The Ideas We Have Of Our Possibilities. I Would Have Hidden In My Hole And Been Crippled By My Sentimentality, Doing What I Was Doing, And Doing It Well, But Always Looking For The Wailing Wall. And I Would Never Have Seen The World As The Rich Place That It Is. You Wouldn't Have Seen Me Here In Africa, Doing What I Do.

I Became Very Interested In The Islamic Question, And Thought I Would Try To Understand It From The Roots, Ask Very Simple Questions And Somehow Make A Narrative Of That Discovery.