Being brave was easy when you would rather die than give up.

Until now, I've been a kind of binge-writer - I'll carve out five or six hours on a weekend day and make a large container of espresso and just bang out a lot of words.

We have lived too long. The great days are past.

Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.

A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I've just gotten in the habit of forgiving.

When I was 35 I realized that I was still thinking a lot about what it would be like to go to Narnia. To really go - not just in a daydream, or in a children's book, but what it would actually feel like, physically, psychologically, every other way. The idea was haunting me.

I never thought about doing a sequel when I was actually writing 'The Magicians.' I only ever considered it a standalone.