Read everything. If you haven't read everything, you'll never be able to write anything.

When I was 35 I realized that I was still thinking a lot about what it would be like to go to Narnia. To really go - not just in a daydream, or in a children's book, but what it would actually feel like, physically, psychologically, every other way. The idea was haunting me.

The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, the people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.

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.

She tortured everybody around her, but only because she was more tortured than anyone.

I read Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I think will subsequently be recognized as one of the first great novels of the 21st century.

Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else.