the reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day.

The difference between writing a story and simply relating past events is that a story, in order to be acceptable, must have shape and meaning. It is the old idea that art is the bringing of order out of chaos.

A dream without a plan is just a wish

Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader.

It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed.

It wasn't so much that he minded telling Leslie that he was afraid to go; it was that he minded being afraid. It was as though he had been made with a great piece missing - one of May Belle's puzzles with this huge gap where somebody's eye should have been. Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts.