The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.

The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty.

Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.

The monster nevers dies.

Your hair is winter fire January embers My heart burns there, too.

Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.

The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important.