“It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them.”

“It's not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between.”

“In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.”

“The more I read, the more I felt connected across time to other lives and deeper sympathies. I felt less isolated. I wasn’t floating on my little raft in the present; there were bridges that led over to solid ground. Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need.Literature is common ground. It is ground not managed wholly by commercial interests, nor can it be strip-mined like popular culture—exploit the new thing then move on.There’s a lot of talk about the tame world versus the wild world. It is not only a wild nature that we need as human beings; it is the untamed open space of our imaginations.Reading is where the wild things are.”

“When I say 'I will be true to you' I am drawing a quiet space beyond the reach of other desires.”

“They believed that if a mouse found your hair clippings and built a nest with them you got a headache. If the nest was big enough, you might go mad.”

“I live in the space between chaos and shape. I walk the line that continually threatens to lose its tautness under me, dropping me into the dark pit where there is no meaning. At other times the line is so wired that it lights up the soles of my feet, gradually my whole body, until I am my own beacon, and I see then the beauty of newly created worlds, a form that is not random. A new beginning.”