"When you open a book," the sentimental library posters said, "anything can happen." This was so. A book of fiction was a bomb. It was a land mine you wanted to go off. You wanted it to blow your whole day. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of books were duds. They had been rusting out of everyone's way for so long that they no longer worked. There was no way to distinguish the duds from the live mines except to throw yourself at them headlong, one by one. --Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

I would like to live to be a hunded because loving and being loved are so good and there are so many books; but were I to learn now that I had only a week left, I would finish today's spell of writing, have the cup of coffee that I crave and go on with the one book I'm reading. --John Tittensor, Year One: A Record

December 8, 2009

The Air We Breathe

by Andrea Barrett
On their last few drives she'd spoken little and answered his questions tersely, trying to act more like an employee than a companion, but he'd sensed nothing. Oblivious, like all the antiques: her mother, Eudora's parents, Mr. Baum who sold her fabric and buttons, the fat geese who ran the village with their swollen middles and scrawny necks. All of them sure they knew how the world worked, unaware that their advice was useless and that they had nothing to say to her. What did they know about what she felt, what she needed, how the world was shimmering beyond these mountains, waiting for her to grasp it? They'd forgotten everything important about being alive.
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