The Things I Keep Going Back To,

Louis Pasteur Said, 'chance Favors The Prepared Mind.' If You're Really Engaged In The Writing, You'll Work Yourself Out Of Whatever Jam You Find Yourself In.

Literature, Like Magic, Has Always Been About The Handling Of Secrets, About The Pain, The Destruction, And The Marvelous Liberation That Can Result When They Are Revealed. If A Writer Doesn't Give Away Secrets, His Own Or Those Of The People He Loves, If He Doesn't Court Disapproval, Reproach And General Wrath, Whether Of Friends, Family Or Party Apparatchiks... The Result Is Pallid, Inanimate, A Lump Of Earth.

A Delicate, Inexorable Lattice Of Inferences Began To Assemble Themselves, Like A Crystal, In The Old Man's Mind, Shivering, Catching The Light In Glints And Surmises.

He Took A Step Toward Her, Than Another, Tentatively, Gathering All His Strength, As Though About To Throw A Heavy Switch That Would, If His Calculations Were Correct, Bring Light To A Hundred Cities And Ten Thousand Darkened Rooms. He Was Going To Ask Her To Dance - That Was All.

... But He Believed That Every Great Love Was In Some Measure A Terrible Mistake.