I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world's surface and exit through it.

It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?

Like any child, I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after.

I had good innings, as the British say. I wrote for 38 years at the top of my form, and I wanted to quit on a high note.

Writers serve as the memory of a people. They chew over our public past.

I couldn't unpeach the peaches.