Slowly We Became Silent, And Silence Itself

We Sat On The Bank And The River Went By. As Always, It Was Making Sounds To Itself, And Now It Made Sounds To Us. It Would Be Hard To Find Three Men Sitting Side By Side Who Knew Better What A River Was Saying.

Poets Talk About "spots Of Time", But It Is Really The Fishermen Who Experience Eternity Compressed Into A Moment. No One Can Tell What A Spot Of Time Is Until Suddenly The Whole World Is A Fish And The Fish Is Gone.

At The Time I Did Not Know That Stories Of Life Are Often More Like Rivers Than Books.

Unless We Are Willing To Escape Into Sentimentality Or Fantasy, Often The Best We Can Do With Catastrophes, Even Our Own, Is To Find Out Exactly What Happened And Restore Some Of The Missing Parts.

The Nearest Anyone Can Come To Finding Himself At Any Given Age Is To Find A Story That Somehow Tells Him About Himself.