Was it pretty? Your country. . .your land?" "It was beautiful," the gunslinger said. "There were fields and forests and rivers and mists in the morning. But that's only pretty. My mother used to say that the only real beauty is order and love and light.

It didn´t occur to me until later that there´s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.

Now panic beats and flutters inside my skull like a flock of starlings locked in an attic.

You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.

They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.