A reader is entitled to believe what he or she believes is consonant with the facts of the book. It is not unusual that readers take away something that is spiritually at variance from what I myself experienced. That's not to say readers make up the book they want. We all have to agree on the facts. But readers bring their histories and all sets of longings. A book will pluck the strings of those longings differently among different readers.

They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time when children begin calling their parents by their first names, becoming little ironists after their parents' faults. What could be lonelier for a parent than to be criticized by his child on a first-name basis?

To write you had to read so I backed into reading.

I don't want to be taken to Bhutan and smell the flowers. I want to be told something I couldn't have been told any other way.

Things happen when people are not where they belong, and the world moves forward and back by that principle.

When people realize they are being listened to, they tell you things.

Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren't smart.