A sweet face oft hides a sinner's heart.

Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.

My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results... but it is the effort that's heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.

The apples stewed with prunes are excellent, except for the prunes, I won't eat prunes myself. Well, there was one time when Hobb chopped them up with chesnuts and carrots and hid them in a hen. Never trust a cook, my lord. They'll prune you when you least expect it.

Eat your heart out, Rowling. Maybe you have billions of dollars and my Hugo, but you don't have readers like these.

A man does not need to be a wizard to know truth from falsehood, not if he has eyes. You need only learn to read a face. Look at the eyes. The mouth. The muscles here, at the corners of the jaw, and here, where the neck joins the shoulders.

The truth of it is, writers do have peculiar relationships with their characters. They are our children in more senses than one. They are born of our imaginations, carry much of ourselves in them, and embody whatever dreams we dream of immortality.