Of course at that point I had no idea that the adventure was only beginning and that the struggle and the rejections were to pile before me, a typical young writer, in an implacable mountain. But I was on my way.

Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things. Their language has been lost. But not the gestures.

The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale.

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.

True balm [of fantasy] takes away the painful irritation of life and simply heals, allowing one to begin anew. And that is what fantasy can do for us.

Fantasy, at its best, is balm for the soul. But it is faulty logic to assume that balm is necessarily mind-numbing anesthesia.

Each letter of the alphabet is a steadfast loyal soldier in a great army of words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories. One letter falls, and the entire language falters.