What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?

The reason I shift gears constantly, why I'm doing an opera, why I've done essays, why I've written poetry for years that nobody wanted, why I do short stories and novels and screenplays... is so I will have new ways of failing. This means becoming a student again.

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

Into the air, over the valleys, under the stars, above a river, a pond, a road, flew Cecy. Invisible as new spring winds, fresh as the breath of clover rising from twilight fields, she flew.

Fire the doubters out of your life.

At the top of your lungs, shout and listen to the echoes. You must live life at the top of your voice!

I'll tell you," said Beatty, smiling at his cards. "That made you for a little while a drunkard. Read a few lines and off you go over the cliff. Bang, you're ready to blow up the world, chop off heads, knock down women and children, destroy authority. I know. I've been through it all.