I hope you liked them, Reader; that they did for you what any good story should do--make you forget the real stuff weighing on your mind for a little while and take you away to a place you've never been. It's the most amiable sort of magic I know.

I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.

Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward life with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.

He remembered waking up once, listening to the wind, thinking of all the dark and rushing cold outside and all the warmth of this bed, filled with their peaceful heat under two quilts, and wishing it could be like this forever.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. Amen

No one likes to see a government folder with his name on it.

Formula: Second Draft = First Draft minus 10%.