That's The Best Thing About Writing, When

The Truth Of Some Promises Is Not As Important As Whether Or Not You Can Believe In Them, With All Your Heart.

In Later Years, Holding Forth To An Interviewer Or To An Audience Of Aging Fans At A Comic Book Convention, Sam Clay Liked To Declare, Apropos Of His And Joe Kavalier's Greatest Creation, That Back When He Was A Boy, Sealed And Hog-tied Inside The Airtight Vessel Known As Brooklyn, New York, He Had Been Haunted By Dreams Of Harry Houdini.

For Me, The Goal Is Always To Write A Novel That I Myself Would Like To Read. People Frequently Ask Me What My Favorite Book Is, And In Effect, There's Always A Capital-f Favorite, Capital-b Book That I Would Like To Write Myself Someday. I Try To Go For That Ideal Of Writing The Best, Most Entertaining, Most Beautifully Written Book That I Possibly Can.

Maybe All Wondrous Books Appear In Our Lives The Way Milo’s Tollbooth Appears, An Inexplicable Gift, Cast Up By Some Curious Chance That Comes To Feel, After We Have Finished And Fallen In Love With The Book, Like The Workings Of A Secret Purpose. Of All The Enchantments Of Beloved Books The Most Mysterious-the Most Phantasmal-is The Way They Always Seem To Come Our Way Precisely When We Need Them.

When I'm Writing Solitude Feels Very Good. But When I'm Not Writing It Feels Lonely... Having A Big Family Solves That Problem.