And it was always the stories that needed the telling that gave us the rope we could cross any river with. They balanced us high above any crevasse. They made us be natural acrobats. They made us brave. They met us well. They changed us. It was in their nature to.

The proper word for me," Robin Goodman says, "is me.

Happy is what you realize you are a fraction of a second before it's too late.

I was at the tail end of the family. The next brother along was already seven years older than me. I remember growing up by myself, playing games by myself.

I want to be bored. But I can't. But I really don't want to be this thing that I'm having to be instead of being bored.

We'd never expect to understand a piece of music on one listen, but we tend to believe we've read a book after reading it just once.

I'm blessed in my good friends, and some of them happen to be writers, though that's almost never what our friendships are about. And every writer I've ever read, living or dead, has in one way or another helped and inspired. I have a feeling it's important not to mix the two up.