He is different, and there will be many people you love who will be unhappy with you. You don’t want them to feel you’ve dishonored them. Yes, I know how it is. But life is short. A chance for great happiness doesn’t come along all that often.

Sometimes many publishers prefer that you write the same book every time, but I have a low boredom threshold so that isn't going to happen.

Fate isn’t one straight road…there are forks in it, many different routes to different ends. We have the free will to choose the path.

Nothing gives us courage more readily than the desire to avoid looking like a damn fool.

Where there is cake, there is hope. And there is always cake.

The mockery of friends is affectionate, and inoculates against foolishness.

He was sure that he was not the cause of the abrupt silence. His passage through the canyon had not previously disturbed either birds or cicadas. Something was out there. An intruder of which the ordinary forest creatures clearly did not approve. He took a deep breath and held it again, straining to hear the slightest movement in the woods. This time he detected the rustle of brush, a snapping twig, the soft crunch of dry leaves-and the unnervingly peculiar, heavy, ragged breathing of something big.