I Have Been Fighting Over Commas All

I Follow My Own Nose. So I Read Things That Are Different. People Will Always Say To Me, "have You Read Robert S. Bosco's Latest Novel?" Or "have You Read So And So's History Of Peru, Which Is Reviewed In The New York Review Of Books And The New York Times And Has A Buzz About It?" I Don't Even Know What You're Talking About. I'm Like From Another Planet. I'm A Pygmy From The Jungle.

Perhaps Things Are Most Beautiful When They Are Not Quite Real; When You Look Upon A Scene As An Outsider, And Come To Possess It In Its Entirety And Forever; When You Live In The Present With The Lucidity And Feeling Of Memory; When, For Want Of Connection, The World Deepens And Becomes Art.

Words Were All He Knew; They Possessed And Overwhelmed Him, As If They Were A Thousand White Cats With Whom He Shared A One-room Apartment.

Perhaps Passing Through The Gates Of Death Is Like Passing Quietly Through The Gate In A Pasture Fence. On The Other Side, You Keep Walking, Without The Need To Look Back. No Shock, No Drama, Just The Lifting Of A Plank Or Two In A Simple Wooden Gate In A Clearing. Neither Pain, Nor Floods Of Light, Nor Great Voices, But Just The Silent Crossing Of A Meadow.

Such A Thing As The Child Left Alone To Die In The Hallway Was Unknown On The Marsh. But Here, In The Dawn, Was Mortality Itself. In The City Were Places To Fall From Which One Could Never Emerge -- Dark Dreams And Slow Death, The Death Of Children, Suffering Without Grace Or Redemption, Ultimate And Eternal Loss. The Memory Of The Child Stayed With Him. But That Was Not To Be The End Of It, For Reality Went Around In A Twisting Ring. Even The Irredeemable Would Be Redeemed, And There Was A Balance For Everything. There Had To Be.