Just because you've seen something doesn't mean you'll stop looking. There's always something you didn't see before.

Life's a forge - Yes, and hammer and anvil, too. You'll be roasted, smelted, and pounded, and you'll scarce know what's happening to you. But stand proudly to it. Metal's worthless till it is shaped and tempered. More labor than luck. Face the pounding, don't fear the proving; and you'll stand well against any hammer and anvil.

What you may seek and what you may find are not always one.

We don't need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They're always with us. We just sort of accumulate them.

Any fool can tell a story. Take a few odds and ends of things that happen to you, dress them up, shuffle them about, add a dash of excitement, a little color, and there you have it.

Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.

Using the device of an imaginary world allows me in some strange way to go to the central issues - it's one of many ways to express feelings about real people, about real human relationships.