“Any friendship that is worth its weight is like a dark and secret place where you hide bits of yourself. The door can be opened only by the two people who have the key, and you carry it with you wherever you go. Magnify that by a billion, and you begin to get an idea of what marriage is like.”

“August 1The harvest season has finally arrived. Today marks its opening. Our next stop on the wheel of the year will be the autumn equinox. I've always seen the opening of the harvest as a kind of stairway we walk down to reach the dark and magickal part of the year where all the good things await. The cool, comforting energy that feels more like home than any place can. Today is the landing at the top of the stairs. All we have to do is put one foot before the other, and before you know it, we'll be watching The Great Pumpkin again.”

“Time spoils quickly in here, and it smells like rotten meat. Every day adds a little more weight, barely noticeable at first, but eventually it will crush you to death. In this place your life can be measured by how long you can keep fighting. The ghouls can sense it if you have any life behind your eyes, and they move in to extinguish it. The guards, the prisoners, the administration - the energy spirals downward forever, creating a hellish staircase that leads nowhere. The most frightening part is how they're all too thick to realize what they're doing. They seem to believe that if they keep digging in the same hole, they'll eventually reach heaven.”

“Inside the house was as dark as an oil slick, so you couldn't see anything moving in the room but you could sense it. It was the same sort of sensation you would experience if a closet door were to swing silently open behind your back. Later I learned a term to describe that sensation - air displacement. What I was sensing was air being displaced by something moving from one spot to another.”

“I learned a long time ago that you have to experience something for yourself or you never really comprehend it.”

“Everywhere you look you see people with things that you do not have, and it has a profound mental effect.”

“The days are passing so quickly. This is the only time of year when I want to slow time down. I spend the entire year trying to get here as fast as I can, then once I'm here I want to slam on the brakes. I'm beginning to have those moments when the feel of autumn is so strong it drowns out everything else. Lately it's been making me think about the perfect soundtrack for a Halloween party.The top of any Halloween music list as to be the theme song from the movie Halloween; right on its heels is "Pet Sematary" by the Ramones. For some reason I've always equated the old Van Morrison song "Moondance" with Halloween, too. I love that song. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus is an October classic, as well as anything by Type O Negative. And Midnight Syndicate. If you've never heard anything by Midnight Syndicate, look them up right this moment. If you distilled the raw essence of every spooky story you ever heard, you would have Midnight Syndicate. I have a friend who swears by them, believing them to be a vital element of any Halloween party. To finish off the list you must have "The Lyre of Orpheus" by Nick Cave and "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle.”