"I’ve always had an urge to try to hold on to places and documents and buildings. If a store went out of business when I was a kid, I’d have a horrified, grieving feeling. How could it be gone? What was the shopkeeper going to do now? I don’t like when precious things slip through people’s fingers—especially things that seem defenseless or uncelebrated, like old newspapers, but also unheralded people who may have said sensible things at a certain time in history, but who were completely drowned out by other people. Or minor poets whose lives were instructive. Sometimes I’m astounded by the absence of sentimentality in other people. How can you not become attached to the poignant scraps that flow through life?"