The real problem with being around James was that he was always the hero. And what did that make you? Either the sidekick or the villain.

The danger would be going back, or staying still. The only way out was through. The past was ruins, but the present was still in play.

I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.

I love playing with the conventions of fantasy, and breaking rules, and crossing lines.

It's very important, at least to me as a writer, that there be some rules on the table when I'm writing. Rules come from genres. You're writing in a genre, there are rules, which is great because then you can break the rules. That's when really exciting things happen.

Genuinely social people never ceased to amaze him. Their brains seemed to generate an inexhaustible fund of things to say, naturally, with no effort, out of nothing at all.

Wasn't there a spell for making yourself happy? Somebody must have invented one. How could he have missed it? Why didn't they teach it? Was it in the library, a flying book fluttering just out of reach, beating its wings against some high window?