A voice speaks to each of us in the still silent places - a voice that tells us to stand, to have courage, to do what is right.

I had come to discover that "safe" was an illusion, a pretense that adults wrapped around their children- and sometimes themselves- to make the world seem comfortable. I had discovered that under that thin cover of let's-pretend, monsters and nightmares lay, and that not all of them came from places like the moonroads or the nightling cities. Some of the monsters were people we knew. People we thought we could trust.

Courage is nothing more than taking one step more than you think you can.

You must learn to face the fact, always, that you choose to do what you do, and that everything you do affects not only you but others.

I have never yet figured out what to do about good advice that you get, and that you know right away would help you, but that you cannot follow.

This is writing. You cut out chunks of your own memories, rework them, bleed into them, breathe into the raw clay, and hope the creature lives.

Anything designed to be inoffensive isn't worth your time -- life itself is pretty offensive, ending as it does with death.