Being Brave Was Easy When You Would

In Our World No One Ever Knows What To Do, And Everyone's Just As Clueless And Full Of Crap As Everyone Else, And You Have To Figure It All Out By Yourself. And Even After You've Figured It Out And Done It, You'll Never Know Whether You Were Right Or Wrong. You'll Never Know If You Put The Ring In The Right Volcano, Or If Things Might Have Gone Better If You Hadn't.

Being A Writer Can Be Isolating. It's Good To Be Among Readers And Booksellers.

As A Teenager In Brooklyn Quentin Had Often Imagined Himself Engaged In Martial Heroics, But After This He Knew, As A Cold Immutable Fact, That He Would Do Anything Necessary, Sacrificing Whatever Or Whomever He Had To, To Avoid Risking Exposure To Physical Violence. Shame Never Came Into It. He Embraced His New Identity As A Coward. He Would Run In The Other Direction. He Would Lie Down And Cry And Put His Arms Over His Head Or Play Dead. It Didn't Matter What He Had To Do, He Would Do It And Be Glad.

By Now He Had Learned Enough To Know That When He Was Getting Annoyed At Somebody Else, It Was Usually Because There Was Something That He Himself Should Be Doing, And He Wasn't Doing It.

He Who Completes A Quest Does Not Merely Find Something. He Becomes Something.