That's Not Such A Bad Thing,' He

The First Draft Of A Book—even A Long One—should Take No More Than Three Months, The Length Of A Season.

When You Stack Up All The Years We Are Allowed Against All There Is To Read, Time Is Very Short Indeed.

The Good Folks Mostly Win, Courage Usually Triumphs Over Fear, The Family Dog Hardly Ever Contracts Rabies: These Are Things I Knew At Twenty-five, And Things I Still Know Now, At The Age Of 25 X 2. But I Know Something Else As Well: There's A Place In Most Of Us Where The Rain Is Pretty Much Constant, The Shadows Are Always Long, And The Woods Are Full Of Monsters. It Is Good To Have A Voice In Which The Terrors Of Such A Place Can Be Articulated And Its Geography Partially Described, Without Denying The Sunshine And Clarity That Fill So Much Of Our Ordinary Lives. (viii)

They Were Close To The End Of The Beginning . . .

Death, But Not For You, Gunslinger. Never For You. You Darkle. You Tinct. May I Be Brutally Frank? You Go On.