Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self. Don't limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean.

Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow.

A related recurring theme is the exploration of how we take for granted the things in our immediate environment that are common and ordinary. Existential blindness, of sorts.

I am happy. I have something to accomplish, create, and achieve. I am happy.

Marion Zimmer Bradley took apart my first submission to her, covered the manuscript in red ink revisions, and told me to try her again. I had never been so reeling with authorial joy as I had been that day, holding Marion's letter and seeing that ravaged manuscript - finally, it meant that someone cared!

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

Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.