I need to talk about my books when I've finished them. I have trouble letting go of the good ones. This says is best:
An Afternoon in the Stacks
Closing the book, I find I have left my head inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound, words adjusting themselves to their meaning. Long passages open at successive pages. An echo, continuous from the title onward. hums behind me. From in here the world looms, a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences carved out when an author traveled and a reader kept the way open. When this book ends I will pull it inside-out like a sock and throw it back in the library. But the rumor of it will haunt all that follows in my life. A candleflame in Tibet leans when I move.
—William Stafford, from Passwords (HarperPerennial, 1991)
From East of Eden:
"I'll want to hear," Samuel said. "I eat stories like grapes."
