no knowledge obtained without risk

The concept of dreaming is known to the waking mind but to the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep.

But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.

I'm convinced that FEAR is at the root, of all bad writing

you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.

I stood for almost an hour in a line of shuffling, bitter - eyed late mailers (Christmas is such a carefree, low - pressure time - that's one of the things I love about it).

I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.