“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

“The scariest, most terrifying thing that I fear?"Yes."My Imagination."I thought you were going to say "Fear, itself."Then you have a small imagination."Roland and Eddie”

“If you're just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television's electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea.”

“As always, the blessed relief of starting, a feeling that was like falling into a hole filled with bright light.As always, the glum knowledge that he would not write as well as he wanted to write. As always the terror of not being able to finish, of accelerating into a brick wall. As always, the marvelous joyful nervy feeling of journey begun.”

“The ladder had always held us before, we thought it would always hold us again, which is a philosophy that gets men and nations in trouble time after time.”

“you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

“Then, instead of telling her that where there was life there was hope, or to let a smile be her umbrella, or that it was always darkest just before the dawn, or anything else that had just lately fallen out of the dog's ass, she simply held her. Because sometimes only holding was best. That was one of the things she had taught that man whose last name she had taken for her own--that sometimes it was best to be quiet; sometimes it was best to just shut your everlasting mouth and hang on, hang on, hang on.”