And in the gunslinger's mind, those words echoed: You dare not.

I don't have nightmares; I give them all to you.

A person can't change all at once.

Was it pretty? Your country. . .your land?" "It was beautiful," the gunslinger said. "There were fields and forests and rivers and mists in the morning. But that's only pretty. My mother used to say that the only real beauty is order and love and light.

When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.

All you imagined, no matter how wild it might seem, was no more than a disguised version of what you already knew.

Adults are the real monsters.