Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings. - Stephen King

No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves.

The road and the tale have both been long, would you not say so? The trip has been long and the cost has been high... but no great thing was ever attained easily. A long tale, like a tall Tower, must be built a stone at a time.

Now, that "school spirit" business is mostly a lot of bullshit made up by school administrators who remember having a helluva time at the Saturday-afternoon gridiron contests of their youth but have conveniently forgotten that a lot of it resulted from being drunk, horny, or both. If you held a rally in favor of legalizing marijuana, you would have seen some school spirit. But football, basketball, and track, most of the student body didn't give a shit. They were too busy trying to get into college or someone's pants or trouble. Business as usual. All the same, you get used to being a winner- you take it for granted.