You Remind Me Of Everything That Followed.

The First Sentence Of A Book Is A Handshake, Perhaps An Embrace. Style And Personality Are Irrelevant. They Can Be Formal Or Casual. They Can Be Tall Or Short Or Fat Or Thin. They Can Obey The Rules Or Break Them. But They Need To Contain A Charge. A Live Current, Which Shocks And Illuminates.

When I Sit Down To Write, I Don't Think About Writing About An Idea Or A Given Message. I Just Try To Write A Story Which Is Hard Enough.

They Were Things For Which It Was Impossible To Prepare But Which One Spent A Lifetime Looking Back At, Trying To Accept, Interpret, Comprehend. Things That Should Never Have Happened, That Seemed Out Of Place And Wrong, These Were What Prevailed, What Endured, In The End.

Ive Inherited A Sense Of That Loss From My Parents Because It Was So Palpable All The Time While I Was Growing Up, The Sense Of What My Parents Had Sacrificed In Moving To The United States, And Yet At The Same Time, Building A Life Here And All That That Entailed.

Still, There Are Times I Am Bewildered By Each Mile I Have Traveled, Each Meal I Have Eaten, Each Person I Have Known, Each Room In Which I Have Slept. As Ordinary As It All Appears, There Are Times When It Is Beyond My Imagination.