Nothing. My father is very good at doing nothing. He calls it thinking.

Anyone can be killed.

You don't just have people who wake up in the morning and say, "What evil things can I do today, because I'm Mr. Evil?" People do things for what they think are justified reasons. Everybody is the hero of their own story, and you have to keep that in mind. If you read a lot of history, as I do, even the worst and most monstrous people thought they were the good guys. We're all very tangled knots.

And for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.

'Dreamsongs' allows me to show the scope of my writing - with personal commentary that puts the works in context and includes some autobiographical details intended to reveal how each piece came to be, what it represents, and how it has formed, or been informed by, my philosophy of writing.

Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad.

A mad man sees what he sees.