I'm nobody's daughter now. I'm through with that.

I read books. Avidly, ardently! As if my life depended upon it.

Near the point of impact, time acelerates to the speed of light.

If Shakespeare's great plays are variants of stories, even novels, you can see how each character is telling his story from his perspective; each is vying with the others for dominance, but in the end, in tragedy, most of these voices will die, to be replaced by the yet more vigorous voice of a younger generation.

How fascinating to a child are words: the shapes, sounds, textures and mysterious meanings of words; the way words link together into elastic patterns called "sentences." And these sentences into paragraphs, and beyond.

Not to be alone. To be spared the possibility of knowing oneself, in aloneness.

That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand this?