Literature Asks Us to Pay Attention

My friend M.C.C. passed along the following quotation from the writer Frederick Buechner, and I was quite taken with his perspective on literature:

“From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady on the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.”