Stories," he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, "we are made up of stories. And even the one's that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.

Wood may remain twenty years in the water, but it is still not a fish.

You write to be read. That is the bottom line.

And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are: Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth.

If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.

The tales of Elfland do not stand or fall on their actuality but on their truthfulness, their speaking to the human condition, the longings we all have for the Faerie Other.

Exercise the writing muscle every day.