Today Is Always Here,' Said Sethe. 'tomorrow,

It's Always Seemed To Me That Black People's Grace Has Been With What They Do With Language. In Lorrain, Ohio, When I Was A Child, I Went To School With And Heard The Stories Of Mexicans, Italians, And Greeks, And I Listened. I Remember Their Language, And A Lot Of It Is Marvelous. But When I Think Of Things My Mother Or Father Or Aunts Used To Say, It Seems The Most Absolutely Striking Thing In The World.

Some Literature Is Knowledge, Some Is Just Data. But If I Can Get A "happy" Ending - Which Is When For The Characters I'm Writing About, Something Happens That They Move From Wherever They Are In The Beginning To Knowledge Or Wisdom, They Know Something They Never Would Have Acknowledged Or Realized If It Hadn't Been For My Book - That For Me Is What Literature Does.

They Had Stared At Her With Great Uncomprehending Eyes. Eyes That Questioned Nothing And Asked Everything. Unblinking And Unabashed, They Stared Up At Her. The End Of The World Lay In Their Eyes, And The Beginning, And All The Waste In Bewteen.

Writing Is Really A Way Of Thinking--not Just Feeling But Thinking About Things That Are Disparate, Unresolved, Mysterious, Problematic Or Just Sweet.

Make Up A Story... For Our Sake And Yours Forget Your Name In The Street; Tell Us What The World Has Been To You In The Dark Places And In The Light. Don't Tell Us What To Believe, What To Fear. Show Us Belief's Wide Skirt And The Stitch That Unravels Fear's Caul.