The problems is this. We have to go with what is currently on the books, the ordinance. That's our manifest, our boundary.

We didn't abstain to say 'don't come,' but just because we don't have what we need on the books. We're not saying everything has to look like the Joseph Kershaw house. Heck, no, but the answer isn't 'it's out on I-20 so it doesn't matter.' That's our door to Camden -- it matters more than anything.

A lot of people say they feel like their problems go away for a little while they're beading.

Al forms of consensus about ''great'' books and ''perennial'' problems, once stabilized, tend to deteriorate eventually into something philistine. The real life of the mind is always at the frontiers of ''what is already known.'' Those great books don't only need custodians and transmitters. To stay alive, they also need adversaries. The most interesting ideas are heresies.

I feel sometimes that [in children's books] there are more and more grim problems, but I don't know that I want to burden third- and fourth-graders with them. I feel it's important to get children to enjoy reading.

Many towns are realizing the future is in the past. When people buy older houses, they have an interest in being a steward of part of that house's history. ... Keeping areas attractive is important.