If dogs talked, one of them would be president by now. Everybody likes dogs.

When I'm in the middle of a book it can go up from there. When you're putting in those hours, the real world kind of fades and the world you're creating becomes almost more real to you than the outside world.

A fine line separates the weary recluse from the fearful hermit. Finer still is the line between hermit and bitter misanthrope.

In tragedy and despair, when an endless night seems to have fallen, hope can be found in the realization taht the companion of night is not another night, that the companion of night is day, that darkness always gives way to light, and that death rules only half of creation, life the other half.

Although the constant shadow of certain death looms over everyday, the pleasures and joys of life can be so fine and affecting that the heart is nearly stilled in astonishment.

Inaction counted as a choice.

Living in the modern age, death for virtue is the wage. So it seems in darker hours. Evil wins, kindness cowers. Ruled by violence and vice we all stand upon thin ice. Are we brave or are we mice, here upon such thin, thin ice? Dare we linger, dare we skate? Dare we laugh or celebrate, knowing we may strain the ice? Preserve the ice at any price?