I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list, although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible.

Everyone else had the look of tired patience people always got when listening to a sermon, no matter what the century.

One of the nastier trends in library management in recent years is the notion that libraries should be 'responsive to their patrons'.

The amazing thing is that chaotic systems don't always stay chaotic," Ben said, leaning on the gate. "Sometimes they spontaneously reorganize themselves into an orderly structure." "They suddenly become less chaotic?" I said, wishing that would happen at HiTek. "No, that's the thing. They become more and more chaotic until they reach some sort of chaotic critical mass. When that happens, they spontaneously reorganize themselves at a higher equilibrium level. It's called self-organized criticality.

And every place and time an author writes about is imaginary, from Oz to Raymond Chandler's L.A. to Dickens's London.

Perhaps that's how I should think of them, Polly thought, the troupe and Miss Snelgrove and Trot. And Sir Godfrey. Not as lost to her, but as removed to this moment in time for safekeeping.

If King Harold had had swans on his side, England would still be Saxon.