Fear And Hope Are Alike Underneath.

Construed As Turf, Home Just Seems A Provisional Claim, A Designation You Make Upon A Place, Not One It Makes On You. A Certain Set Of Buildings, A Glimpsed, Smudged Window-view Across A Schoolyard, A Musty Aroma Sniffed Behind A Garage When You Were A Child, All Of Which Come Crowding In Upon Your Latter-day Senses -- Those Are Pungent Things And Vivid, Even Consoling. But To Me They Are Also Inert And Nostalgic And Unlikely To Connect You To The Real, To That Essence Art Can Sometimes Achieve, Which Is Permanence.

Humans Generally Get Out The Gist Of What They Need To Say Right At The Beginning, Then Spend Forever Qualifying, Contradicting, Burnishing Or Taking Important Things Back. Yor Rareley Miss Anything By Cutting Most People Off After Two Sentences.

Cynicism Makes You Feel Smart, I Know It, Even When You Aren't Smart.

When You Are Sixteen You Do Not Know What Your Parents Know, Or Much Of What They Understand, And Less Of What's In Their Hearts. This Can Save You From Becoming An Adult Too Early, Save Your Life From Becoming Only Theirs Lived Over Again--which Is A Loss. But To Shield Yourself--as I Didn't Do--seems To Be An Even Greater Error, Since What's Lost Is The Truth Of Your Parents' Life And What You Should Think About It, And Beyond That, How You Should Estimate The World You Are About To Live In.

At Heart, Of Course, A Story Itself Is Consolation's Instrument.