There Are Things That Can't Be Said,

As For Aliki - If You Were To Stand In The Middle Of Rome And Say The Name Sophia Loren, Or Paris And Say The Name Catherine Deneuve Or Brigitte Bardot, Or L.a. And The Name Marilyn Monroe, It's Like Standing In Athens, Or Anywhere In Wide-flung Greece, And Saying Aliki Vougiouklaki. A Huge Star - And So Little Known Elsewhere In The World.

I'm Blessed In My Good Friends, And Some Of Them Happen To Be Writers, Though That's Almost Never What Our Friendships Are About. And Every Writer I've Ever Read, Living Or Dead, Has In One Way Or Another Helped And Inspired. I Have A Feeling It's Important Not To Mix The Two Up.

I Was At The Tail End Of The Family. The Next Brother Along Was Already Seven Years Older Than Me. I Remember Growing Up By Myself, Playing Games By Myself.

What Shop Did This Book Come From? She Asked. Her Father Was Looking Worried At The Cooker. He Always Got Rice Wrong. I Don't Know, Brooksie, He Said, I Don't Remember. That Was Unimaginable, Not Remembering Where A Book Has Come From! And Where It Was Bought From! That Was Part Of The Whole History, The Whole Point, Of Any Book That You Owned! And When You Picked It Up Later In The House At Home, You Knew, You Just Knew By Looking And Having It In Your Hand, Where It Came From And Where You Got It And When And Why You'd Decided To Buy It.

Books Mean All Possibilities. They Mean Moving Out Of Yourself, Losing Yourself, Dying Of Thirst And Living To Your Full. They Mean Everything.