Tolkien understood about the things that happen after the end. Because this is after the end, this is all the Scouring of the Shire, this is figuring out how to live in the time that wasn’t supposed to happen after the glorious last stand. I saved the world, or I think I did, and look, the world is still here, with sunsets and interlibrary loans. And it doesn’t care about me any more than the Shire cared about Frodo.

It's wrong for libraries to have limited budgets.

Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization.

Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts.

If the purpose of literature is to illuminate human nature, the purpose of fantastic literature is to do that from a wider perspective. You can say different things about what it means to be human if you can contrast that to what it means to be a robot, or an alien, or an elf.

I don't need to be a radical to think that who a dragon is counts more than birth or wealth," Selendra said, with what dignity she could."Why, that's the very definition of a radical," he retorted.

There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.