Dawn was coming. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.

My mom once lost track of me at the zoo and when she found me I was lecturing a man about the difference between dromedary and Bactrian camels. I was about 3 1/2.

I will say the most raw joy I've experienced reading has probably come from the times I've been reading with my little boys.

It's hard for me to take myself too seriously when I'm constantly experiencing firsthand what an incredible gimp I can be.

So Stapes conducted a dinner for just the two of us, then informed me of a dozen small but important mistakes I had made. Setting down a dirty utensil was considered crude, for example. That meant it was perfectly acceptable to lick one's knife clean. In fact, if you didn't want to dirty your napkin it was the only seemly thing to do.

Soft fantasy worlds have a much looser cause-and-effect relationship. Alchemists can turn lead into gold and nobody wonders about how it will impact the currency system. Someone waves a wand and turns an elephant into a mouse and nobody worries about conservation of mass.