How easy it is to think well of ourselves. Until the moment is upon us, we can never be certain.

If a storyteller worried about the facts - my dear Lucian, how could he ever get at the truth?

At the end of knowledge, wisdom begins, and at the end of wisdom, there is not grief...but hope

He was a great poet" They lamented. No, he was not a great poet," said Theo, "He was a good poet, he could have been better. That's the real loss don't you see?

I came to fantasy fairly late. For some ten years, I had been happily writing fiction and non-fiction for adults. But I always loved fantasy, whether for adults or young people; and at that particular point in my life, I wanted to try it, to understand it, as part of the process of learning to be a writer. The results were beyond anything I could have foreseen. As I've said often and elsewhere, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life.

Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.

You must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled. Is not the emptiness of the bowl what makes it useful? As for laws, a parrot can repeat them word for word. Their spirit is something else again. As for governing, one must first be lowest before being highest.