Metaphor is one of a group of problem-solving medicines known as figures of speech which are normally used to treat literal thinking and other diseases.

We're the new power, come to replace the old. Cameras in the head, children with microchips, spin doctors rewriting reality as it happens.

I run blindly through the madhouse ... And I cannot even pray ... For I have no God.

Performing magic has a lot to do with the arrangement of apparent coincidences and providing pathways along which desires can travel, or, to put it in more basic terms, there's little point in sigilizing for a lottery win if you don't also buy a lottery ticket.

In the world of the superheroes, everything had value, potential, mystery. Any person, thing, or object could be drafted into service in the struggle against darkness and evil - remade as a weapon or a warrior or a superhero. Even a little bee named Michael - after God's own avenging angel - could pitch in to win the battle against wickedness.

It's hard for me to believe that a shy, bespectacled college graduate like Brad Meltzer who's a novelist and a father is a really setting out to be weirdly misogynistic.

Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are.