There Is A Line Of Poetry, A

I Know My Time Will Come Soon Enough, But I Will Not Dwell On It. What Is The Purpose? We Might As Well Dwell On The Work Of Our Teeth Or On The Mechanics Of Our Walk. It Is There, It Will Always Be There, And I Don't Intend To Spend My Glorious Hours Looking Over My Shoulder To See Death's Icy Face.

A Book Brings Its Own History To The Reader.

Libraries, Whether My Own Or Shared With A Greater Reading Public, Have Always Seemed To Me Pleasantly Mad Places, And For As Long As I Can Remember I've Been Seduced By Their Labyrinthine Logic, Which Suggests That Reason (if Not Art) Rules Over A Cacophonous Arrangement Of Books.

If The Book Is Second-hand, I Leave All Its Markings Intact, The Spoor Of Previous Readers, Fellow-travellers Who Have Recorded Their Passage By Means Of Scribbled Comments, A Name On The Fly-leaf, A Bus Ticket To Mark A Certain Page.

Not Until I Came To Canada Did I Realize That Snow Was A Four-letter Word.