29 Talbot Street The Neat Little Bookshop

"I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist.  If it is child's play, an extension of make-believe ~ something one is frequently assured by persons who write about writing ~ how to account for the overriding wish to do that, just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a racing bike over the Alps?  Perhaps the cultural attache at a Canadian embassy who said to me "Yes, but what do you really do?" was expressing an adult opinion.  Perhaps a writer is, in fact, a child in disguise, with a child's lucid view of grown-ups, accurate as to atmosphere, improvising when it tries to make sense of adult behavior."
~ Mavis Gallant, The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant, Canadian Writer (b. August 11, 1922) A Douglas Gibson Book M&S, 1996.