The Dead Have A Presence.

It Is Possible To Be Homesick For A Place Even When You Are There.

History Was Not A Matter Of Missing Minutes On The Tape. I Did Not Stand Helpless Before It. I Hewed To The Texture Of Collected Knowledge, Took Faith From The Solid And Availing Stuff Of Our Experience. Even If We Believe That History Is A Workwheel Powered By Human Blood -- Read The Speeches Of Mussolini -- At Least We've Known The Thing Together. A Single Narrative Sweep, Not Ten Thousand Wisps Of Disinformation. (82)

Writing Is A Concentrated Form Of Thinking...a Young Writer Sees That With Words He Can Place Himself More Clearly Into The World. Words On A Page, That's All It Takes To Help Him Separate Himself From The Forces Around Him, Streets And People And Pressures And Feelings. He Learns To Think About These Things, To Ride His Own Sentences Into New Perceptions.

He Wanted Paper And Something To Write With, Some Way To Sustain A Thought, To Place It In The World.

There's Something Nearly Mystical About Certain Words And Phrases That Float Through Our Lives. It's Computer Mysticism. Words That Are Computer Generated To Be Used On Products That Might Be Sold Anywhere From Japan To Denmark - Words Devised To Be Pronounceable In A Hundred Languages. And When You Detach One Of These Words From The Product It Was Designed To Serve, The Words Acquires A Chantlike Quality.