It is quite a thing. There are so many men, all endlessly trying to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me lest I fall.

What were you thinking?" Bast said with an odd mixture of confusion and concern. Coat was a long while in answering. "I tend to think too much Bast. My greatest successes tended to come when I stopped thinking and simply did what felt right, even if there was no explantion for what I did.

Writing a good query letter has very little to do with writing a good novel. But if you can't write the one, it makes it really hard to get the other published.

Science is just magic with better PR.

I won the only duel I ever lost.

Reading is professionally important for me to keep tuned in to what's being written in my genre, let's not lie. But that's not the reason I read. I read for my own emotional and mental health. If I stopped reading, I'd probably just die.

No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.