I know my time will come soon enough, but I will not dwell on it. What is the purpose? We might as well dwell on the work of our teeth or on the mechanics of our walk. It is there, it will always be there, and I don't intend to spend my glorious hours looking over my shoulder to see death's icy face.

If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity.

Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

The telling of stories creates the real world.

My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.

Deserted libraries hold the shades of writers who worked within, and are haunted by their absence.

Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good.