Research the imagination. It was as obsolete as the appendix in most adults, except for those in whom, like the appendix, it became inflamed for no reason.

I don't teach lies, but I do not teach all I know is true.

Content, it dreams awake, and spins the fabric of tales. There is really nothing to be done with such imagery except to use it: in writing, in art.

It’s an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.

I would be mute, beautiful, changless as the earth for you. I would be your memory, without age, always innocent, always waiting in the King's white house. I would do that for you and no other man inthe relm. But it would be a lie and I will do anything but lie to you - I swear that.

But even in the schoolyard I'd been aware of that silence, that reserve in him, as though he'd been raised by foxes and language was his second language.

The moon grew full, then slowly pared itself down until it shriveled into a ghostly boat riding above the roiling dark. Then it fell out of the sky. They climbed into it, left land behind, and floated out to sea.