In real life, things don't all end at the nice same place. To keep the story real, there has to be kind of a ragged edge at the end of a novel.

Start writing sooner. Don't wait for permission. Don't hesitate.

The fight isn't over until you win.

Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.

I was dressed up as a witch for Halloween, and wanted to write a story about my black cat before I went out trick-or-treating. I think it went out with the trash the next day.

Her stillness was such a contrast to all the jumbled communication inside me that I suddenly felt what a tiresome fellow I was, always filling the air with the rattle of words and anxieties.

I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgment: that we are a part of that world.