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.

My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.

That’s what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a child’s game, to be crumpled up and thrown away when it was over. It didn’t matter. Death didn’t respect you. Death thought you were bullshit, and it wanted to make sure you knew it.

By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn't doing it.

I think every fantasy reader secretly believes they know how magic works.

Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.

In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone's just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you've figured it out and done it, you'll never know whether you were right or wrong. You'll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn't.