The Best Essays Come From

. . . There Is An Absolute Disjunction Between Our Father's Love And Our Deserving.

Fiction May Be, Whatever Else, An Exercise In The Capacity For Imaginative Love, Or Sympathy, Or Identification.

I Think Probably One Of The Important Things That Happened To Me Was Growing Up In Idaho In The Mountains, In The Woods, And Having A Very Strong Presence Of The Wilderness Around Me. That Never Felt Like Emptiness. It Always Felt Like Presence.

Then There Is The Matter Of My Mother's Abandonment Of Me. Again, This Is The Common Experience. They Walk Ahead Of Us, And Walk Too Fast, And Forget Us, They Are So Lost In Thoughts Of Their Own, And Soon Or Late They Disappear. The Only Mystery Is That We Expect It To Be Otherwise.

Pity And Charity May Be At Root An Attempt To Propitiate The Dark Powers That Have Not Touched Us Yet.