The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours. Against the blue candlewick bedspread the white pages of my open book, illuminated by a circle of lamplight, were the gateway to another world.

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

Art, its completeness, its formedness, its finishedness, had no power to console. Words on the other hand, were a lifeline. They left their hushed rhythm behind, a counter to the slow in and out of Emmeline's breathing.

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

Boys do not leave their boyhood behind when they leave off their school uniform.

There are times when the human face and body can express the yearning of the heart so accurately that you can, as they say, read them like a book. Do not abandon me.

But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.