One of the many reasons that Padma will always be a secondary power on the Council is his belief that all power must be taken, that all power must come through fear. True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war.

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print

He was twenty. I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath.

Assuming the worst was always safer. And usually truer.

But we were all young once. It passes, like innocence and a sense of fair play. The only thing left in the end is a good instinct for survival.

Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you.

The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.