Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction.

Much as I admire Tolkien, I once again always felt like Gandalf should have stayed dead. That was such an incredible sequence in Fellowship of the Ring when he faces the Balrog on the Khazad-dûm and he falls into the gulf, and his last words are, "Fly, you fools." What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he's sort of improved. I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.

Historical fiction is not history. You're blending real events and actual historical personages with characters of your own creation.

Let him grow taller,she asked the gods.Let him know sixteen, and twenty, and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. Please, please, please.

For herself, she wanted sleet and ice, howling winds, thunder to shake the very stones of the Red Keep. She wanted a storm to match her rage.

If somebody dies and you just go get more popcorn, it’s a superficial experience isn’t it?

There has never been a slave who did not choose to be a slave. Their choice may be between bondage and death, but the choice is always there.