He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.

I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

When you're starting off as a young writer, you look at all the stuff that's gone before and the stuff that's influenced you, and you reach the ladle of your imagination into this bubbling stew pot of all of this stuff, and you pour it out. And that's where you start from.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.

I know that this is the internet, and we're all anonymous and all that, but really. It doesn't hurt to try to be nice.

Have you thought about what it means to be a god?" asked the man. He had a beard and a baseball cap. "It means you give up your mortal existence to become a meme: something that lives forever in people's minds, like the tune of a nursery rhyme. It means that everyone gets to re-create you in their own minds. You barely have your own identity any more. Instead, you're a thousand aspects of what people need you to be. And everyone wants something different from you. Nothing is fixed, nothing is stable.

Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths outside this garden.