I Make My Share Of Mistakes, But

The Tradition I Was Born Into Was Essentially Nomadic, A Herdsmen Tradition, Following Animals Across The Earth. The Bookshops Are A Form Of Ranching; Instead Of Herding Cattle, I Herd Books. Writing Is A Form Of Herding, Too; I Herd Words Into Little Paragraph-like Clusters.

If You Want One Thing Too Much It’s Likely To Be A Disappointment. The Healthy Way Is To Learn To Like The Everyday Things, Like Soft Beds And Buttermilk—and Feisty Gentlemen.

When Augustus Came Out On The Porch The Blue Pigs Were Eating A Rattlesnake—not A Very Big One. It Had Probably Just Been Crawling Around Looking For Shade When It Ran Into The Pigs. They Were Having A Fine Tug-of-war With It, And Its Rattling Days Were Over.

Occasionally The Very Youngness Of The Young Moved Him To Charity--they Had No Sense Of The Swiftness Of Life, Nor Of Its Limits. The Years Would Pass Like Weeks, And Loves Would Pass Too, Or Else Grow Sour.

Call Listened With Amusement--not That The Incident Hadn't Been Terrible. Being Decapitated Was A Grisly Fate, Whether You Were A Yankee Or Not. But Then, Amusing Things Happened In Battle, As They Did In The Rest Of Life. Some Of The Funniest Things He Had Ever Witnessed Had Occurred During Battles. He Had Always Found It More Satisfying To Laugh On A Battlefield Than Anywhere Else, For If You Lived To Laugh On A Battlefield, You Could Feel You Had Earned The Laugh. But If You Just Laughed In A Saloon, Or At A Social, The Laugh Didn't Reach Deep.