But the unspoken, as we know, tends to strengthen, to mature and grow richer over the years, like an undrunk wine. Of course it may just go to Freudian vinegar. Some thoughts and feelings go to vinegar very quickly, and must be poured out at once. Some go on fermenting in the bottle, and burst out in an explosion of murderous glass shards. But a good, robust, well-corked feeling only gets deeper and more complicated, down in the cellar. The thing is knowing when to uncork it.

during sleep the brain is literally acting like a computer's Web browser, incorporating new experience by sorting through different memory systems to form associations and connections that help us make sense of the world.

All effective descriptive writing is fueled by character and is in the essence a form of interiorization. What is seen and described is purportedly not seen and described by the author, but rather through the eyes of the point-of-view character; thus everything that character sees must mirror what he or she is feeling. If you character is angry or upset, what he sees of, say, a room will be different than what he sees when feeling calm.

Indeed, it is never safe to classify the souls of one's neighbors