About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell... I defy anybody to read the first page and not keep going to the last.

Being a writer can be isolating. It's good to be among readers and booksellers.

I'm happy to report that 'The New Press' is still in business to this day. But not thanks to me. I was a really bad publishing intern.

As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.

The truth doesn't always make a good story, does it?

Josh speculated about the hypothetical contents of an imaginary porn magazine for intelligent trees that would be entitled Enthouse.

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