Scaring people, especially in our day and time, is one of the hardest things on earth, as far as I am concerned.

As a young man just beginning to publish some short fiction in the t&a magazines, I was fairly optimistic about my chances of getting published; I knew that I had some game, as the basketball players say these days, and I also felt that time was on my side; sooner or later the best-selling writers of the sixties and seventies would either die or go senile, making room for newcomers like me.

In the end we are all caught in devices of our own making. I believe that. In the end we are all caught.

That's not such a bad thing,' he said to me. 'In nightmares we can think the worst. That's what they're for, I guess.

In polite society, we call our obsessions hobbies.

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.

Roland grabbed Jake and hauled him to his feet. “You came!” Jake shouted. “You really came!” “I came, yes. By the grace of the gods and the courage of my friends, I came.