"The Latin dictum regarding the shortness of life and the perseverance of art speaks of a valiant hope: that against all odds, the brief pleasures of our present can live on in something more durable than mere flesh; that the experience may outlast the body that experienced it; that like tentative gods, we can bring to life in words or clay a semblance of what we continually lose. Perhaps that is why we carve the name of our loved one on school benches and on the trunks of trees, why we keep a paper napkin from the coffeeshop of our first date, why we recognize in tearjerkers and great dramas our own intimate experiences."
- Alberto Manguel, 1994
(with contributions by John Cheever, Alice Walker, Tenessee Williams, John Updike, and 30 others)
An excellent read found at the soon-to-close Macondo Books, a wonderful used-bookstore that has fallen victim to changing times: soaring rent and a generation of non-readers. We are the poorer for this. May 31st.
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