I Wrote To Explain My Own Life

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.

Books Are Living Things And Their Task Lies In Their Vows Of Silence. You Touch Them As They Quiver With A Divine Pleasure. You Read Them And They Fall Asleep To Happy Dreams For The Next 10 Years. If You Do Them The Favor Of Understanding Them, Of Taking In Their Portions Of Grief And Wisdom, Then They Settle Down In Contented Residence In Your Heart.

It Is The Secret Life That Sustains Me Now, And As I Reach The Top Of That Bridge I Say It In A Whisper, I Say It As A Prayer, As Regret, And As Praise. I Can't Tell You Why I Do It Or What It Means, But Each Night When I Drive Toward My Southern Home And My Southern Life, I Whisper These Words: 'lowenstein, Lowenstein.

It Did Not Look Like The Work Of God, But It Might Have Represented The Handicraft Of A God With A Joyous Sense Of Humor, A Dancing God Who Loved Mischief As Much As Prayer, And Playfulness As Much As Mischief.

Of The Yamacraw Children, I Can Say Little. I Don't Think I Changed The Quality Of Their Lives Significantly Or Altered The Inexorable Fact That They Were Imprisoned By The Very Circumstance Of Their Birth.