The main advantage of being a reviewer is that you read a lot. A lot of books get sent to you, and you have an amazing vantage point from which to observe what's going on in contemporary fiction - not only genre stuff, the whole spectrum.

If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.

It's natural for a child to assume that his or her own childhood is unremarkable.

You're saying the gods don't have free will." "The power to make mistakes," Penny said. "Only we have that. Mortals

A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength.

We're wired to expect the world to be brighter and more meaningful and more obviously interesting than it actually is. And when we realize that it isn't, we start looking around for the real world.

We have reached the point where ignorance and neglect are the best we can hope for in a ruler.