Is it folly to believe in something that is intangible? After all, some of the greatest intangibles are Love, Hope, and Wonder. Another is Deity. The choice to be a fool is yours.

When reviewing my novel Dreams of the Compass Rose for the Magazine of F&SF, master fantasist Charles de Lint called it "engaging and resonant, creating a new mythology that feels so right one might be forgiven for thinking that it's the cultural heritage of some forgotten country or people that have been lost to history." This of course I take as the highest compliment, since it was indeed my sincere intent.

Love - not dim and blind but so far-seeing that it can glimpse around corners, around bends and twists and illusion; instead of overlooking faults love sees through them to the secret inside.

Use this day to do something daring, extraordinary and unlike yourself. Take a chance and shape a different pattern in your personal cloud of probability!

When I was a little kid back in Moscow, Russia, I've always thought I would become an artist or a folk dancer or an astronomer. In fact, if you'd asked me then about a life of solitary writing I would have said, "Oh how boring! Imagine, to sit at a desk all day and just write."

Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind. Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation. Suddenly, you know you are alive.

One true king knew when to step aside and give up the reins of power—to remove his crown and relinquish his kingdom—all for the sake of glimpsing, just once in a lifetime, the face of a holy child. He was the Fourth to follow the Star. His gift was a secret. The rest of his journey is unknown.