In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone’s true character is revealed.
If beginnings terrify you, or if you just plain don’t like writing them, or if they bore you, skip ’em.
My favorite of my books is DAVE AT NIGHT, because it’s loosely based on my father’s childhood in an orphanage.
No one is here,” Char said. “You need resist temptation no longer.” “Only if you slide too.” “I’ll go first so I can catch you at the bottom.” He flew down so incautiously that I suspected him of years of practice in his own castle. It was my turn. The ride was a dream, longer and steeper than the rail at home. The hall rose to meet me, and Char was there. He caught me and spun me around.
Food for thought requires a mind with teeth.
I had been able to break the curse myself. I’d had to have reason enough, love enough to do it, to find the will and the strength.
Everyone else reached the Shores of Sleep, but I remained oceans away.
In that moment I found a power beyond any I’d had before, a will and a determination I would never have need if not for Lucinda, a fortitude I hadn’t been able to find for a lesser cause.
Love shouldn’t be dictated.
Everyone called it losing Mother, but she wasn’t lost. She was gone, and no matter where I went – another town, another country, Fairyland, or Gnome Caverns – I wouldn’t find her.
My contrariness kept Char laughing, and his goodness kept me in love.
I can see that. She is lovely, very different from you. Oh, my clumsy tongue.” Vollys’s bells clanged. “You are lovely too, but in a quieter way. In temperament I see that you are different as well. She could lead a charge, but you could last a siege. This is fascinating, little Adelina. The more I look at her, the more clearly I see you. You may be a worthier opponent than even my Willard was.
I wished I could spend the rest of my life... being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.
I write fiction for lots of reasons. One is power. I’m in charge when I write. So are you. You create the world of the story. You make the rules.
I love you now... I love you immortally, even if I die and there is nothing left of me.
Sorcerers believe that an action taken for the right reasons has an unreasonable chance of success.
But sleep was busy elsewhere.
Perhaps you couldn’t help being angry... but you could certainly stop yourself from repaying one offense with another.
Instead of making me docile, Lucinda’s curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally.
After two stories, I blew out my light. The night was clear. My ceiling was the sky and an eyelash of the moon. By shifting from side to side, I made my hammock swing me into sleep.