We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.

Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.

With age comes acumen. With experience comes insight.

And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past.

Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine. . .and then make them plausible.

I have lived with magic and without magic, and I can tell you with certainty that a life with magic is better.

Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.