But The First Lie In

Fathering Imposed An Obligation That Was More Than Your Money, Your Body, Or Your Time, A Presence Neither Physical Nor Measurable By Clocks: Open-ended, Eternal, And Invisible, Like The Commitment Of Gravity To The Stars.

There Was A Sort Of Irony In The Fact That These [superhero] Characters - Many Of Whom In That Period, The Golden Age, Had Been Evolved To Fight The Nazis - Were Themselves Very Much In The Nazi Ideal. The Idea That You Can Solve Problems Through Physical Strength, By Being Stronger And More Dominant And More Powerful - That Is Fascism. I Mean, That's It, That's The Essence Of Fascism. I Don't Think The Creators Of The Superheroes Or The Kids Who Were Reading Them At The Time Were The Slightest Bit Aware Of It.

Every Day Is Like A Kid's Drawing, Offered To You With A Strange Mix Of Ceremoniousness And Offhand Disregard, Yours For The Keeping. Some Of The Days Are Rich And Complicated, Others Inscrutable, Others Little More Than A Stray Gray Mark On A Ragged Page. Some You Manage To Hang On To, Though Your Reasons For Doing So Are Often Hard To Fathom. But Most Of Them You Just Ball Up And Throw Away.

I'm Never Going To Be A Tom Clancy. And I Wouldn't Really Want To Be - Not That I Have Anything Against Him, And I Wish Him Continued Success - Because That's Not Why I'm Writing Novels. I'm Doing It Because I Have To. I Feel Like I Have To, Anyway.

A Father Is A Man Who Fails Every Day.