People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being.
I must try to remember that a boy's heart is not a man's, and perhaps a teacher must learn from his pupil, too, eh?
Fear is an instinct, like hunger or anger. We need it to help us survive, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It lets us know whether we should fight or flee.
Death,' whispered Tarlar, 'you do not fear it, Fell? By water, or any other way?' 'What is to fear?" answered the black wolf. 'If it is an end, then so be it. For there is no pain in that, except the pain left to the living. . . And if death is not an end, then what more than a wonderful journey.
And, Kar, love is not a commandment, it is a need, as real as eating.
Now go away, or I'll get my friends the Bats to bite you.
Why does death engender fear? Because death meant change, a change greater then we have ever known, and because death was indeed a mirror that made us see ourselves as never before. A mirror that we should cover, as people in olden days covered mirrors when someone died, for fear of an evil. For with all our care and pain for those who had gone, it was ourselves too we felt the agony for. Perhaps ourselves above all.
You have to be a lover of books without expecting more of them than they give - a little pleasure, a little insight, a moment of escape, a deepening of your own humanity. Not much else.
It is perhaps common in the world for individuals and nations to suffer for their noble qualities more than for their ignoble ones. For nobility is an occasion for pride, the most treacherous of sentiments.
But then why is it so terrible for me to be with the girl I love? Everyone one is permitted to have what they want, express their love as they please, without fear of harassment, ostracism, persecution, or even the law. Even emotionally abusive, adulterous relationships are often tolerated, despite the harm they cause others. In our progressive, permissive society, all these harmful, unhealthy types of "love" are allowed--but not ours.
Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond the ending in the reader's mind, so invested are they in the story.