Well now, Jack," Hastings said from the sidelines. "I'm afraid you've been beheaded. Not a good start." He sounded amused.

I have to think it's possible to suffer a great wrong and walk away from it. To build a life of small, exquisitely important moments.

Weird is good, strange is bad.

His aster-blue eyes shown out from a face blackened by bruises and soot, his fair hair glittering in the firelight. Dressed all in black, silhouetted against flame, he looked rather like a demon, raised from the dead, trading for souls on the other side.

You do not respond to an attempt on your life with a slap on the hand. Or a joke.

But it's not enough to know right from wrong. You need the strength to do what's right, even when what you want most in the world is the wrong thing.

If you want to be a writer, you must be in love with the process of writing, whether you achieve financial success or not.