Loved Better

She reminds us of the world’s dazzle. She seems to say; the world has no need to be represented - there it is, all around us, all the time.  

What the world needs is to be loved better. 

George Saunders wrote this about Grace Paley

my town studio again

She was inside and the outside was alive and separate.

My solitude is my treasure, the best thing I have.

I am my own riddle.

O sir, you must not seek to steal away my solitude.

It is a thing we women are taught to dread.

O the terrible tower.

O the thickets round it.

from Possession by A.S. Byatt - found in November 1991 journal