Fairy tales, because they have a very clear structure, are easier to interfere with. Also they have this really weird logic: the kind of logic that you only really experience when youre not feeling very well, or as a child.

I do tend to feel more connected to dead writers, perhaps because they have finished their work.

The language of [Catholic] mysticism - its repeated attempts to lay consciousness itself bare and speak all the intensely opposing yet interconnected parts of it that cannot be spoken.

In Narnia a girl might ring a bell in a deserted temple and feel the chime in her eyes, pure as the freeze that forces tears. Then when the sound dies out, the White Witch wakes. It was like, I want to touch you, and I can touch you, now what next, a dagger?

Sometimes I feel weird about time. Sometimes I feel that it doesnt go in the order we perceive it. There are... repetitions that maybe we decide not to notice because it is simpler. I like to pick up on those moments.

It occurred to me that I was unhappy. And it didn’t feel so very terrible. No urgency, nothing. I could slip out of my life on a slow wave like this—it didn’t matter. I don’t have to be happy. All I have to do is hold on to something and wait.

I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names.