THE MOTION PICTURE SHOW INSIDE YOUR HEAD

READING is different from a movie. You make the pictures in your head and the people look like people you've seen before and the trees are trees you know, and the roads are roads you've walked on. A book is half you and half someone else who's telling a story that's playing itself out in your head. You have to participate. You have to listen carefully or you'll miss something. But, the great thing about a book is that it's patient and it actually does stop and wait for you, and if you missed something you can go back and read that part again until you get it. And no matter how hard things are in the book, it's still not like real life, which goes on irresistibly and no matter how hard you try or how much you want it, you can't speed it up and you can't slow it down, and you can't pretend that the things that happen aren't really happening. And you can't put it down and go to dinner. And you know how it's going to come out.

August 18, 1997

3/17/99

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