Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.

I'm not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.

Good music is good music, but it has to be good.

And the process of reading is such a private one. I once came into a room where a friend of mine was reading one of my books, and he clicked his tongue impatiently and shooed me off.

My eyes close. I am here and not here. A waking nap? A flight to the end of the galaxy and perhaps a couple of billion light-years beyond?

Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.

Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.