You Can Choose Your Friends, But You

It's Quite A Thing, If You've Never Been In Or Known A Small Southern Town. The People Are Not Particularly Sophisticated, Naturally. They're Not Worldly Wise In Any Way. But They Tell You A Story Whenever They See You.

There's No Substitute For The Love Of Language, For The Beauty Of An English Sentence. There's No Substitute For Struggling, If A Struggle Is Needed, To Make An English Sentence As Beautiful As It Should Be.

Now, 75 Years Later In An Abundant Society Where People Have Laptops, Cell Phones, Ipods, And Minds Like Empty Rooms, I Still Plod Along With Books. Instant Information Is Not For Me. I Prefer To Search Library Stacks Because When I Work To Learn Something, I Remember It. And, Oprah, Can You Imagine Curling Up In Bed To Read A Computer? Weeping For Anna Karenina And Being Terrified By Hannibal Lecter, Entering The Heart Of Darkness With Mistah Kurtz, Having Holden Caulfield Ring You Up — Some Things Should Happen On Soft Pages, Not Cold Metal.

You Can Choose Your Friends But You Sho' Can't Choose Your Family, An' They're Still Kin To You No Matter Whether You Acknowledge 'em Or Not, And It Makes You Look Right Silly When You Don't.

Dill If You Don't Hush I'll Knock You Bowlegged.