When I write my books, actually I'm known for very logical rule-based magic systems. I write with one foot in fantasy and one foot in science fiction.

Well Vin says that there's something behind all this, right? Some evil force of doom or whatever? Well, if I were said force of doom, then I certainly wouldn't have used my powers to turn the land black. It just lacks flair. Red. Now, that would be an interesting color. Think of the possibilities--if the ash were red, the rivers would run like blood. Black is so monotonous that you can forget about it, but red--you'd always be thinking, 'Why, look at that. That hill is red. That evil force of doom trying to destroy me certainly has style.

Though, if you think about it, hostile, dethroned pseudodeities probably make disagreeable neighbors. You'll have to figure out something to do with him.

My outlines are always very goal-based. What do I want to have happen by the ending and how can I earn that.

Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can--what we we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.

Those candle flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they were meant to illuminate. Embryonic bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and dash kings to their knees.

Vin: I don't know -- and it's all your fault, you know. I used to understand everything. Now it's all confused. Kelsier: Yes, we've messed you up right properly.