“Stories," he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, "we are made up of stories. And even the ones that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.”

“Aren't hidden doors the most alluring? The old stories point that out surely. Even the greatest heroes and heroines fall under the spell of a locked door.”

“We all have such stories. It is a brutal arithmetic. But I - I am alive. You are alive. As long as we breathe, we can see and hear. As long as we can remember, all those gone before are alive inside us.”

“They [Fairy Tales] are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor. People used to understand metaphor better than I think we do now. But these stories are so potent, they refuse to die.”

“Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.”

“Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the fact that some people survived even as most people died. And can remind us that the swallows still sing around the smokestacks.”

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.”