I Do The Same Things

But I Believe The Words Entered Me And Changed Me And Still Work In Me. The Words Eat Me And Sustain Me. And When I'm Dead And In A Box In The Dark Dark Ground, And All My Various Souls Have Died And I Am Nothing But Insensible Bones, Something In The Marrow Will Still Feel Yearning, Desire Persisting Beyond Flesh.

So Of Course Time Is Necessary. But Nevertheless Damn Painful, For It Transforms All The Pieces Of Your Life - Joy And Sorrow, Youth And Age, Love And Hate, Terror And Bliss - From Fire Into Smoke Rising Up The Air And Dissipating On A Breeze.

While Writing Cold Mountain, I Held Maps Of Two Geographies, Two Worlds, In My Mind As I Wrote. One Was An Early Map Of North Carolina. Overlaying It, Though, Was An Imagined Map Of The Landscape Jack Travels In The Southern Appalachian Folktales. He's Much The Same Jack Who Climbs The Beanstalk, Vulnerable And Clever And Opportunistic.

She Wondered If Literature Might Lose Some Of Its Interest When She Reached An Age Or State Of Mind Where Her Life Was Set On Such A Sure Course That The Things She Read Might Stop Seeming So Powerfully Like Alternate Directions For Her Being.

What You Have Lost Will Not Be Returned To You; It Always Be Lost. You’re Left With Only Your Scars To Mark The Void. All You Can Choose To Do Is Go On, Or Not. But If You Go On, It’s Knowing You Carry Your Scars With You.