A Story Untold Could Be The One

Few Things Linger Longer Or Become More Indwelling Than That Feeling Of Both Completion And Emptiness When A Great Book Ends. That The Book Accompanies The Reader Forever From That Day Forward Is Part Of Literature's Profligate Generosity.

The World Of Literature Has Everything In It, And It Refuses To Leave

There Is No Teacher More Discriminating Or Transforming Than Loss.

Here's What I Want From A Book, What I Demand, What I Pray For When I Take Up A Novel And Begin To Read The First Sentence: I Want Everything And Nothing Less, The Full Measure Of A Writer's Heart. I Want A Novel So Poetic That I Do Not Have To Turn To The Standby Anthologies Of Poetry To Satisfy That Itch For Music, For Perfection And Economy Of Phrasing, For Exactness Of Tone. Then, Too, I Want A Book So Filled With Story And Character That I Read Page After Page Without Thinking Of Food Or Drink Because A Writer Has Possessed Me, Crazed With An Unappeasable Thirst To Know What Happens Next.

Here's What I Love: When A Great Writer Turns Me Into A Jew From Chicago, A Lesbian Out Of South Carolina, Or A Black Woman Moving Into A Subway Entrance In Harlem. Turn Me Into Something Else, Writers Of The World. Make Me Muslim, Heretic, Hermaphrodite. Put Me Into A Crusader's Armor, A Cardinal's Vestments. Let Me Feel The Pygmy's Heartbeat, The Queen's Breast, The Torturer's Pleasure, The Nile's Taste, Or The Nomad's Thirst. Tell Me Everything That I Must Know. Hold Nothing Back.