"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

August 8, 2011

When the King Comes Home

by Caroline Stevermer

Life is short, as the wisdom of the ages has it, but fortunately art is long. I don't expect to understand much more of either than I already do. I was born with what wisdom I have, and the many years that I have lived served only to make the scantiness of that wisdom more evident. Though I do seem to do better than most people.
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