In all that was to happen, there would be that feeling of inevitability and rightness, and the sense that the universe was conspiring in it. It would be easy.

Like mold on books, grow myths on history.

I think with world building, it's important to create a sense of culture even if it is just a fantasy, and the best way to do that is to look at a real human culture and see what makes it cohesive.

It's easy to get published once you have written a really good book and the hard part, 99 percent of what you need to worry about, is really finishing it.

She had a sadness that was so deep, but it still could turn to light in a second, and when I saw her smile I wondered what it would be like to make her smile. I thought... I thought it would be like the discovery of smiling.

Mercy, she had discovered, made mad alchemy: a drop of it could dilute a lake of hate.

It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him.