It's a great thing when you feel that you recognize yourself, deeply and movingly, in a work of literature.

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.

our country is poor but our hearts are rich

It was a time after 'Lady Sings the Blues' and 'Mahogany' and all those romantic movies: I became this romantic figure on the street in a very special way.

I grew up in Detroit. I grew up in an environment where you were supposed to be Democrat, where they told you that Republicans were evil people and that they were racist.

The food in such places is so tasteless because the members associate spices and garlic with just the sort of people they're trying to keep out.

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

Developing a relationship with someone you admire, who can encourage you to reach your full potential, is something that everyone can benefit from.

Gaga is an entertainer, so a hat for her is part of the illusion of entertaining.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.

I love mysteries on television – the more psychologically complex the better.

I certainly have more enthusiasm when I'm dealing with marginalized people in Japan, and as a creative person I am part of that marginalization.