Eagles Over the Kennebec

My late grandmother once told me, "Speaking to yourself is a sign of intelligence." She also said, "You are not middle-aged until you are seventy-five." Strangely enough I had reason to mention this to two different people over the course of four days spent in the hospital lately (two for my husband and two for myself, we went for the "two for one" sale). I vote for "What?". Sometimes one speaks and sometimes one has reason to convey in a different context. A writer who brings us into a world which is not our own does well to do that also. How else shall we know where we are?