The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one’s life and discover one’s usefulness. - John Cheever

Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the lord.

Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain [and] the noise of battle. [It] has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.