I never thought about doing a sequel when I was actually writing 'The Magicians.' I only ever considered it a standalone.

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.

Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.

Music has always been my protection against the world, from a very young age. I feel safe inside of a jam.

My mother told me, “Son, it is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.” I have tried very hard to heed those words.

Self-acceptance is involved in this process. You have got to be able to look at both your dark and your light side and not get enamored or depressed by either.

I rarely play a real person, because I don't think I'm a good imitator.

I never think of the future. I never imagine what comes next.

The outstanding problem of the Public is discovery and identification of itself

The future is hidden by a dark impenetrable veil, and yet we struggle to pierce through it.

My brother-in-law wrote an unusual murder story. The victim got killed by a man from another book.

I've been overweight all my life.