Words,words filled the night like the fragrance of invisible flowers.

And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts.

Memories, so sweet and bitter.. they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost?

Weren’t all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!

Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?

She always did like tales of adventure-stories full of brightness and darkness. She could tell you the names of all King Arthur's knights, and she knew everything about Beowulf and Grendel, the ancient gods and the not-quite-so-ancient heroes. She liked pirate stories, too, but most of all she loved books that had at least a knight or a dragon or a fairy in them. She was always on the dragon's side by the way.

What a plague love is!