Sometimes things work just because you think they work. It's as good a definition of faith as any.

When one has little faith, one must survive from day to day signs-

Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end.

We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other ... except through faith.

But it's really faith that monsters live on, isn't it? I am led irresistibly to this conclusion: food maybe life, but the source of power is faith, not food. And who is more capable of a total act of faith than a child?

I have never felt like I was creating anything. For me, writing is like walking through a desert and all at once, poking up through the hardpan, I see the top of a chimney. I know there's a house under there, and I'm pretty sure that I can dig it up if I want. That's how I feel. It's like the stories are already there. What they pay me for is the leap of faith that says: "If I sit down and do this, everything will come out OK.

Remember that "seeing is believing" puts the cart before the horse. Art is the concrete artifact of faith and expectation, the realization of a world that would otherwise be little more than a veil of pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of mystery.

What am I going to say if I end up standing in front of God the Father Almighty and He asks me to explain why I did it? That it was my job? My job?

Help us to be true, Lord. Help us to stand.