She wondered if literature might lose some of its interest when she reached an age or state of mind where her life was set on such a sure course that the things she read might stop seeming so powerfully like alternate directions for her being.

Or maybe it is only that we are so habitually inattentive that when some rare but simple geometry grabs us by the shoulders and shakes us into consciousness, we call our response sacred.

I was 46 when 'Cold Mountain' came out. I was settled. We had a nice house in Raleigh and a horse farm.

Disease is nature's revenge for our destructiveness.

It is a bad idea to live too long. Few carry it off well.

Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom.

Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate.