The only way to have a friend is to be one. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them. – Confucius

Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world, the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to, like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places. – Charles de Lint