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

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

It's a terrible thing for a book, when you feel like you're supposed to like it.

I think for a long time, I was paralyzed by some of my hopes and ideals for what my life was going to be like. I had this perfect vision of how my life should go, but it seemed - it was - impossible to realize, so I sat around for a long, long time doing almost nothing at all.

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

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.

You don’t learn about yourself by being alone, you learn about yourself from other people.