The best advice that an accomplished writer could give a beginning writer is probably, "Find your slide and then grease it." Almost every writer that wants a rewarding career, in terms of money and status and number of readers, finally finds a certain genre or certain style that he or she sticks with until reaching a critical mass of readership. And I've violated this from the get-go.

The past is dead and buried. But I know now that buried things have a way of rising to the surface when one least expects them to.

Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level ... that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference.

As for the depiction of the Catholic church, it's not meant to be a prediction

Once evolution gets a good basic design, it tends to throw away the variants and concentrate on the near-infinite diversity within that design.

Context is to data what water is to a dolphin

If everyone could understand the working of a psychopath's mind, we undoubtedly would be closer to insanity ourselves.