If you wish, I shall go personally to your City and knock together the heads of Perlith and Galooney.

But I'm going to try to tell the truth. Except for the parts I'm leav­ing out, because there's still stuff I'm just not going to tell you. Get used to it.

He laughed, tried to make it into a cough, inhaled at exactly the wrong moment, and then really did cough.

And if my choice is to sit graciously in my best robes and accept the inevitable or to bail a sea with a bucket, give me the bucket.

So, what do you do when you know you have two days to live? Eat an entire Bitter Chocolate Death cake all by myself. Reread my favorite novel. Buy eight dozen roses from the best florist in town--the super expensive ones, the ones that smell like roses rather than merely looking like them--and put them all over my apartment. Take a good long look at everyone I love.

She, too, spoke only when the queen or king addressed her first, but she looked searchingly at every supplicant, and her clear face said that she had opinions about everything she heard, and that it was her proud duty to think out those opinions, and make them responsible and coherent.

For anyone who is: just keep writing. Keep reading. If you are meant to be a writer, a storyteller, it'll work itself out. You just keep feeding it your energy, and giving it that crucial chance to work itself out. By reading and writing.