To grant the power of a weapon master to anyone at all, without effort, without training and proof that the lessons have taken hold, is to deny the responsibility that comes with such power.

There's way too much pain in this business for anyone who doesn't HAVE to write.

...a third [of three] had died in his bunk of natural causes--for a dagger in the heart quite naturally ends one's life.

Take your love and your pleasure as you find it. Do not worry so much of the future that you let today pass you by. you are happy. need you know more than that?

Definitely they write themselves. It's an amazing experience. It's like the characters have come alive and are sitting on my shoulder talking to me, telling me their tales.

Is yours an honest lament? ... Most are not, you know. Most self-imposed burdens are founded on misperceptions. We - at least we of sincere character - always judge ourselves by stricter standards than we expect others to abide by. It is a curse, I suppose, or a blessing, depending on how one views it... Take it as a blessing, my friend, an inner calling that forces you to strive to unattainable heights.

As I became a creature of the empty tunnels, survival became easier and more difficult all at once. I gained in the physical skills and experience necessary to live on. I could defeat almost anything that wandered into my chosen domain. It did not take me long, however, to discover one nemesis that I could neither defeat nor flee. It followed me wherever I went - indeed, the farther I ran, the more it closed in around me. My enemy was solitude, the interminable, incessant silence of hushed corridors.