I Don't Understand Why, In My Work,

Narration Is As Much A Part Of Human Nature As Breath And The Circulation Of The Blood.... Storytelling Is Intrinsic To Biological Time, Which We Cannot Escape. Life, Pascal Said, Is Like Living In A Prison From Which Every Day Fellow Prisoners Are Taken Away To Be Executed. We Are All, Like Scheherazade, Under Sentence Of Death, And We All Think Of Our Lives As Narratives, With Beginnings, Middles And Ends.

No Mere Human Can Stand In A Fire And Not Be Consumed.

One Does Not Remember The Winners. One Remains Haunted By The Losers.

A Surprising Number Of People - Including Many Students Of Literature - Will Tell You They Haven't Really Lived In A Book Since They Were Children.

I Know That Part Of The Reason I Read Tolkien When I'm Ill Is That There Is An Almost Total Absence Of Sexuality In His World, Which Is Restful.