How often have I met and disliked writers whose books I love; and conversely, hated the books and then wound up liking the writer? Too often.

You don’t learn about yourself by being alone, you learn about yourself from other people.

If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.

You didn’t get the quest you wanted, you got the one you could do.

He who completes a quest does not merely find something. He becomes something.

The danger would be going back, or staying still. The only way out was through. The past was ruins, but the present was still in play.

I have no doubt there are magician psychopaths, and magician serial killers. I doubt Brakebills admissions is very good at screening for those.

That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect.

It's time to live with what we have and mourn what we lost.

By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn't doing it.

Don't take anyone's writing advice too seriously.

Never try to do anything that is outside of who you are. A forced smile is a sign of what feels wrong in your heart, so recognize it when it happens. Living a lie will reduce you to one.

It is not error which opposes the progress of truth; it is indolence, obstinacy, the spirit of routine, every thing which favors inaction.

Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason. Then I think that the next most powerful reason is the wish for safety.

There is no healing a man till the law has wounded him, no making him alive till the law has slain him.

I sing all day. And it's good for you. Good for your vocal cords.

We should not and cannot change all our differences. Each of us brings from our own background things which we should share. There is good in diversity.

In the temporary illumination of the headlights, the insects were scribbling out messages from God that we couldn't get.

I want a heart which is split, part by part, because of the pain of separation from God, so that I might explain my longing and complaint to it.

The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.