The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.

It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

The man in black smiled. "Shall we tell the truth then, you and I? No more lies?" I thought we had been." But the man in black persisted as if Roland hadn't spoken. "Shall there be truth between us, as two men? Not as friends, but as equals? There is an offer you will get rarely, Roland. Only equals speak the truth, that's my thought on't. Friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of regard. How tiresome!

I thought it was great fun to scare people. I also knew it was socially acceptable because there were a lot of horror movies out there.

The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.

And in real life endings aren't always neat, whether they're happy endings, or whether they're sad endings.