No one survives in times of war unless they make war their home. How did I get so old and wise, but for welcoming war into my house and making friends with him? Better to befriend the enemy and hang on. Something worse might come along, which might be amusing or might not.

I mean, evil and boredom. Evil and ennui. Evil and the lack of stimulation. Evil and sluggish blood.

I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.

Science, my dears, is the systematic dissection of nature, to reduce it to working parts that more or less obey universal laws. Sorcery moves in the opposite direction. It doesn't rend, it repairs. It is synthesis rather than analysis. It builds anew rather than revealing the old. In the hands of someone truly skilled,...it is Art.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?

To read, even in the half-dark, is also to call the lost forward.

Wishing is the beginning of imagination. They practice wishing when they are young things, and then -when they have grown - they have a developed imagination. Which can do some harm - greed, that kind of thing - but more often does them some good. They can imagine that things might be different. Might be other than they seem. Could be better.