Reading Is Going Toward Something That Is

To Write Well About The Elegant World You Have To Know It And Experience It To The Depths Of Your Being... What Matters Is Not Whether You Love It Or Hate It, But Only To Be Quite Clear About Your Position Regarding It.

Arriving At Each New City, The Traveler Finds Again A Past Of His That He Did Not Know He Had: The Foreignness Of What You No Longer Are Or No Longer Possess Lies In Wait For You In Foreign, Unpossessed Places.

Renouncing Things Is Less Difficult Than People Believe: It's All A Matter Of Getting Started. Once You've Succeeded In Dispensing With Something You Thought Essential, You Realize You Can Also Do Without Something Else, Then Without Many Other Things.

For Those Who Pass It Without Entering, The City Is One Thing; It Is Another For Those Who Are Trapped By It And Never Leave. There Is The City Where You Arrive For The First Time; And There Is Another City Which You Leave Never To Return. Each Deserves A Different Name; Perhaps I Have Already Spoken Of Irene Under Other Names; Perhaps I Have Spoken Only Of Irene.

Who Are We, Who Is Each One Of Us, If Not A Combination Of Experiences, Information, Books We Have Read, Things Imagined? Each Life Is An Encyclopedia, A Library, An Inventory Of Objects, A Series Of Styles, And Everything Can Be Constantly Shuffled And Reordered In Every Way Conceivable.