She had no particular breed in mind, no unusual requirements. Except the special sense of mutual recognition that tells dog and human they have both come to the right place.

My parents were horrified when I told them I wanted to be an author.

I came to fantasy fairly late. For some ten years, I had been happily writing fiction and non-fiction for adults. But I always loved fantasy, whether for adults or young people; and at that particular point in my life, I wanted to try it, to understand it, as part of the process of learning to be a writer. The results were beyond anything I could have foreseen. As I've said often and elsewhere, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life.

Seize the day, whatever's in it to seize, before something comes along and seizes you.

That is why your sacrifice was all the more difficult. You chose to be a hero not through enchantment but through your own manhood.

All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.

You have a point," said Fronto, "and even a poet must occasionally bow to logic.