It was not apathy. It was an intelligent disinterest in those things that could have no bearing on one's existence.

Your dreams will betray you. Go nowhere on a horse that fades.

At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.

The dictate of the light says: Know yourself and what you are. The dark replies, By all means, but then become afraid.

I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

Robespierre, crippled and blind, has yet to be healed to the knowledge that service - his desire - is a deed of savage-speaking gentleness, not soft-spoken savagery.