Why did becoming accustomed to something have to render its pleasures stale.

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.

It was different, though, knowing something in your thoughts and then hearing it confirmed, made real, planted in the world like a tree

Words were power, words tried to change you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever really cross.

I have always argued, in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people.

There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behavior that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality. We have to make room for them.

The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.