I’ve always told myself stories, and as I got old enough to write them down, I wrote them down. My stories happen to me; I bump into them, like pieces of furniture; and they are clear and plain to me — like pieces of furniture; and they were clearer and plainer to me now than when I was a child, for which I am grateful... years later, and thousands of words later, of practice words and practice stories, the flicker of Story on those cave walls I more easily read because I myself throw fewer distracting shadows...

One of the first questions — after what do I eat for breakfast and what color is my typewriter — that I had seriously to consider as an author speaking to a reader came about at my first public-speaking gig, at my old prep school, Gould Academy, where I had been invited back as a graduate who seemed to be doing something interesting with her life. A sophomore boy, having been compelled to read Beauty, said grimly, "They’re always talking to us about themes and symbols. Do you put that stuff in?" The answer is no. I don’t put much of anything in consciously, except commas, and my copy-editor takes a lot of those out again. The stories are there; I am only sorry, every time, that I can’t do a better job by them.

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