Writing Is The Hardest Work

The Culture Of Drink Endures Because It Offers So Many Rewards: Confidence For The Shy, Clarity For The Uncertain, Solace To The Wounded And Lonely, And Above All, The Elusive Promises Of Friendship And Love.

For Those Without Money, The Road To The Treasure House Of The Imagination Begins At The Public Library.

It's Odd Being An American Now. Most Of Us Are Peaceful, But Here We Are Again, In Our Fifth Major War Of This Century.

Just Like That. Gone Forever. They Will Not Grow Old Together. They Will Never Live On A Beach By The Sea, Their Hair Turned White, Dancing In A Living Room To Billie Holiday Or Nat Cole. They Will Not Enter A New York Club At Midnight And Show The Poor Hip-hop Fools How To Dance. They Will Not Chuckle Together Over The Endless Folly Of The World, Its Vanities And Stupid Ambitions. They Will Not Hug Each Other In Any Chilly New York Dawn. Oh, Mary Lou. My Baby. My Love.

What Libraries Give You Is All Three Tenses - The Past Tense - The Present Tense In Which We Live And The Future That We Can Only Imagine. These Places Have Teachers Who Are Living And Dead And We Are Lucky To Have Them. If I Sit Here And Read Aristotle, He Is Speaking To Me Across A Thousand Years - More Than A Thousand Years. That Sense That I Am In The Company Of The Great Greatest People Who Ever Lived Is A Humbling Experience But A Liberating Experience.