Our comforting myth

1. Have you ever read a right excellent phrase and, instead of writing it down, determined to remember it, only to forget it the next day? Yes, well …

2. Ah, yes, now it comes to me. The phrase is: “a man of many doors.” What do you make of it?

3. Great writing cannot carry a bad story, unless all you’re after is florid or impressive language.

4. Man’s nature desires acceptance, approval, and — yes, we must use the word here — love. So rarely he discovers it.

5. Books are made to stand vertically on the shelf, except for very large ones, and not packed in too tightly. People, too.

6. An original verse: How dear to us our comforting myth! / On him who spurns it, our fiercest wrath!

7. A Bible verse: “When I worried about many things, your assuring words soothed my soul” Psa 94.19 GW.