It's the form it takes when it comes out the other side, of course, that gives a story something unique--its life. The story, in the way it has arrived at what it is on the page, has been something learned, by dint of the story's challenge and the work that rises to meet it--a process as uncharted for the writer as if it had never been attempted before.

Suppose you meet me in the woods.

We are the breakers of our own hearts

To open up the new, to look back on the old may bring forth like discoveries in the practice of art.

It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming of themselves like grass.

I get a moral satisfaction out of putting things together.

Writers and travelers are mesmerized alike by knowing of their destinations.