You are a name, not a number. Never forget that name, whatever they tell you here. You will always be Chaya—life—to me.

In fantasy stories we learn to understand the differences of others, we learn compassion for those things we cannot fathom, we learn the importance of keeping our sense of wonder. The strange worlds that exist in the pages of fantastic literature teach us a tolerance of other people and places and engender an openness toward new experience. Fantasy puts the world into perspective in a way that 'realistic' literature rarely does. It is not so much an escape from the here-and-now as an expansion of each reader's horizons.

The main plot line is simple: Getting your character to the foot of the tree, getting him up the tree, and then figuring out how to get him down again.

I believe that culture begins in the cradle . . .To do without tales and stories and books is to lose humanity's past, is to have no star map for our future.

Intuition works best when you remember that “tuition” is part of it. You need to have paid ahead of time (ie done your prep work) so as to prepare the ground for intuition.

Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.

Write, write, and write some more. Think of writing as a muscle that needs lots of exercise.