Though I Have Never Thought Of Myself

Though I Have Never Thought Of Myself As A Book Collector, There Are Shelves In Our House Browsed So Often, On So Many Rainy Winter Nights, That The Contents Have Seeped Into Me As If By Osmosis.

Back In My 20s, When I Wrote 'a Place Of Greater Safety,' The French Revolution Novel, I Thought, 'i'll Always Have To Write Historical Novels Because I Can't Do Plots.'' But In The Six Years Of Writing That Novel, I Actually Learned To Write, To Invent Things.

If I Am Feeling Broken, I Can Pick Up One Of [ivy Compton-burnett] Books And The Next Morning I Can Write Again. It Puts My Mechanism Back.

When Narratives Fracture, When Words Fail, I Take Consolation From The Part Of My Life That Always Works: The Stationery Order. The Mail-order Stationery People Supply Every Need From Royal Blue Quink To A Dazzling Variety Of Portable Hard Drives.

God Takes Out Your Heart Of Flesh, And Gives You A Heart Of Stone.