Superhero movies and comic books teach a lesson that runs directly counter to the culture-of-violence idea: guns are for bad guys too cowardly to fight like men.

Oh, there were all sorts of things to wonder about, but the truth was simple: here stood this door alone on an endless stretch of beach, and it was for only one of two things: opening or leaving closed.

Nora Roberts is cool.

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 have two amazing things in my life: I'm pain-free and I'm debt-free.

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.

Somebody said the prospect of eminent death has a wonderful clarifying effect on the mind. And I don't know if that's true, but I do think it probably causes some changes, some evolution in the way a person works. But on a day-by-day basis, I just still enjoy doing what I'm doing.