"No, son, we're not finished. We just don't need us a book anymore. You can just come and visit anyway. I might go to see your family too. I hear there's a good fishing your way. We did this book just like we said we would. We did our best. I don't care if nothing else happens with it or if somebody was to print a hundred copies. I'll have my own copy and I can read now."
"You've accomplished a lot."
"That's right. Yet judge me not for the deeds I've done. But for the life I've lived. Son, people think one hundred years is a long time. Most folks just don't understand. My life hasn't been as long at all; seems short to me. It's all gone by so fast. Life is so good and it gets better every day."
To write is to enter into silence, to speak in a low voice for the few who enter into silence with you because they recognize a voice that is rising up out of themselves. There exists a race of people, you see, who are in harmony with you. One is a writer, another is a reader, what does it matter? They are branches of the same stream, beyond ideas and opinions. If so many human beings live by appearances and exhaust themselves in the theater of the world, it is in order to cover over the depth of the abyss. For if the immemorial voice continued to murmur to them, they would no longer be able to believe in progress, money, success or glory.
