From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap; I loved the crisp whisper of a page turning, the musky odor of old paper and the sharp inky whiff of new pages. Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside.

NexusI wrote stubbornly into the evening.At the window, a giant praying mantisrubbed his monkey wrench head against the glass,begging vacantly with pale eyes;and the commas leapt at me like wormsor miniature scythes blackened with age.the praying mantis screeched louder,his ragged jaws opening into formlessness.I walked outside;the grass hissed at my heels.Up ahead in the lapping darknesshe wobbled, magnified and absurdly green,a brontosaurus, a poet.

I've never stopped wanting to cross the equator, or touch an elk's horns, or sing Tosca or screwJames Dean in a field of wheat.To hell with wisdom. They're all wrong:I'll never be through with my life.

Since she's discoveredmen would rather drownthan nibble,she does just fine.

The First BookOpen it.Go ahead, it won't bite.Well. . . maybe a little.More a nip, like. A tingle.It's pleasurable, really.You see, it keeps on opening.You may fall in.Sure, it's hard to get started;remember learning to useknife and fork? Dig in:you'll never reach bottom.It's not like it's the end of the world--just the world as you thinkyou know it.

Our situation is intolerable, but what's worseis to sit here and do nothing.

I tell you, if you feel strange, strange things will happen to you: Fallen peacocks on library shelves

Women invented misery, but we don't understand it.

Against Self-PityIt gets you nowhere but deeper intoyour own shit--pure misery a luxuryone never learns to enjoy.