Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it's like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There's plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.

Grammar is...the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

Clear communication between selves - the surface self and the deep self - is the enemy of self-doubt. It slays confusion.

Everyone needs a hobby, he said. And everyone needs a miracle or two, just to prove life is more than just one long trudge from the cradle to the grave.

Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.

Because things like this you can only ssay once. And you either get it wrong or right, it's the end either way, because it's too hard to ever try to say again.