And if you are honest about the words coming out of your characters' mouths, you'll find that you've let yourself in for a fair amount of criticism.

I love my sons and I love that they are writers - I also love my daughter, who's a minister and an orchard keeper! - but I wouldn't wish the burden of Mid-World and the Dark Tower on them. I enjoy working with them, though, because we fit together.

Now panic beats and flutters inside my skull like a flock of starlings locked in an attic.

Swear to me swear to me that if it isn't dead you'll all come back.

It's alright to feel fear, but sometimes a very bad idea to show it.

You needn't die happy when your time comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from the beginning to the end and ka is always served.

I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.