Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand — that of finding a workable compromise between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurd… - Annie Dillard

Last forever!' Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.

So live. I'll be the nun for you. I am now.

I had a head for religious ideas. They were the first ideas I ever encountered. They made other ideas seem mean....I had miles of Bible in memory: some perforce, but most by hap, like the words to songs. There was no corner of my brain where you couldn't find, among the files of clothing labels and heaps of rocks, among the swarms of protozoans and shelves of novels, whole tapes and snarls and reels of Bible.