Outside, Daylight Was Bleeding Slowly Toward Dusk.

He Was One Of Those Quite Rare Adults Who Communicate With Small Children Fairly Well And Who Love Them All Impartially--not In A Sugary Way But In A Businesslike Fashion That May Sometimes Entail A Hug, In The Same Way That Closing A Big Business Deal May Call For A Handshake.

All I Can Say Is What You Already Know: Some Days Are Treasure. Not Many, But I Think In Almost Every Life There Are A Few. That Was One Of Mine, And When I'm Blue -- When Life Comes Down On Me And Everything Looks Tawdry And Cheap, The Way Joyland Avenue Did On A Rainy Day -- I Go Back To It, If Only To Remind Myself That Life Isn't Always A Butcher's Game. Sometimes The Prizes Are Real. Sometimes They Are Precious.

Talent Is A Dull Knife That Will Cut Nothing Unless It Is Wielded With Great Force.

I’m Convinced That Fear Is At The Root Of Most Bad Writing. Dumbo Got Airborne With The Help Of A Magic Feather; You May Feel The Urge To Grasp A Passive Verb Or One Of Those Nasty Adverbs For The Same Reason. Just Remember Before You Do That Dumbo Didn’t Need The Feather; The Magic Was In Him.

The First Real Terror Struck Him Then, And There Was Nothing Supernatural About It. It Was Only A Realization Of How Easy It Was To Trash Your Life. That Was What Was So Scary. You Just Dragged The Fan Up To Everything You Had Spent The Years Raking Together And Turned The Motherfucker On.