Some are just born bad, and that's all there is to it.

When I am in the darkness, I want to think of it in the light, with you," he said, and straightened, and turned to walk toward the door. The parchment robes of the Silent Brothers moved around him as he moved, and Tessa watched him, paralyzed, every pulse of her heart beating out the words she could not say: Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye.

A lot of people feel like urban fantasy is a shortcut that gets you around world-building, because it's set "in the real world." But it doesn't really work that way, as I found out. You have to come up with just as consistent an internal cosmology and magic system as you would if you were writing high fantasy.

You can keep it a secret.... But secrets have their own weight, and it can be a very heavy one.

I’d rather have you in my life even as a brother than not at all—

As Magnus turned to walk away from the church, he heard the sound of violin music carried to him on the cloudy London air, and remembered another night, a night of ghosts and snow and Christmas music, and Will standing on the steps of the Institute, watching Magnus as he went.

No good sentences ever include the word ‘should.’ I should have paid the tavern bill; now they’re coming to break my legs. I should never have run off with my best friend’s wife; now she devils me constantly. I should—