There is really no end to life's little humiliations.

The process of learning is a nonstop orgy of wonderment.

Maybe this was one of those times when being a hero didn’t involve looking particularly brave. It was just doing what you should.

His whole personality was like an elaborate joke that he never stopped telling.

Maybe there's a sense that technology isn't necessarily the answer to a lot of our problems. Fantasy offers readers a less radically alienated world - a world where desires and feelings that normally are trapped inside your mind are made real in the form of magic.

You're all so obsessed with other worlds, you're so convinced that this one is crap and everywhere else is great, but you've never bothered to figure out what's going on here!

I have no doubt there are magician psychopaths, and magician serial killers. I doubt Brakebills admissions is very good at screening for those.