Friday's A Free Day. A Woman's Day.

Behind The Curtain's Mystic Fold The Glowing Future Lies Unrolled.

She Sat Down On One Of Her Grandmother's Uncomfortable Armchairs, And The Cat Sprang Up Into Her Lap And Made Itself Comfortable. The Light That Came Through The Picture Window Was Daylight, Real Golden Late-afternoon Daylight, Not A White Mist Light. The Sky Was A Robin's-egg Blue, And Coraline Could See Trees And, Beyond The Trees, Green Hills, Which Faded On The Horizon Into Purples And Grays. The Sky Had Never Seemed So Sky, The World Had Never Seemed So World ... Nothing, She Thought, Had Ever Been So Interesting.

I Have Always Felt That Violence Was The Last Refuge Of The Incompetent, And Empty Threats The Last Sanctuary Of The Terminally Inept.

Shadow Had Heard Too Many People Telling Each Other Not To Repress Their Feelings, To Let Their Emotions Out, Let The Pain Go. Shadow Thought There Was A Lot To Be Said For Bottling Up Emotions. If You Did It Long Enough And Deep Enough, He Suspected, Pretty Soon You Wouldn't Feel Anything At All.

You Can Tell The Date Of An Old Science Fiction Novel By Every Word On The Page. Nothing Dates Harder And Faster And More Strangely Than The Future.