There Came A Time When

The Essential And Defining Characteristic Of Childhood Is Not The Effortless Merging Of Dream And Reality, But Only Alienation. There Are No Words For Childhood's Dark Turns And Exhalations. A Wise Child Recognizes It And Submits To The Necessary Consequences. A Child Who Counts The Cost Is A Child No Longer.

I Think Most Of Us Can Remember From Our Own Childhood, Just In The Disney Cartoons, Things That Frightened Us Profoundly. For Me It Was Bambi, The Scene When The Forest Was On Fire. That Was Something I Had Nightmares About. I Can't Imagine Being A Little Kid Of Eight And Seeing Night Of The Living Dead With Living Corpses Eating The Flesh Of Living People.

Of All The Questions I'm Asked, The Most Difficult Is, "how Does It Feel To Be Famous?" Since I'm Not, That Question Always Catches Me With A Feeling Of Surrealism....i've Got Three Kids And I've Changed All Their Diapers, And When It's Two O'clock In The Morning And You're Changing Something That's Sort Of Special Delivery With One Eye Open And One Eye Shut You Don't Feel Famous.

Was It Pretty? Your Country. . .your Land?" "it Was Beautiful," The Gunslinger Said. "there Were Fields And Forests And Rivers And Mists In The Morning. But That's Only Pretty. My Mother Used To Say That The Only Real Beauty Is Order And Love And Light.

Writers Write. That's All It Is. It Is As Simple, And As Complex, As That.