Unfortunately, a lot of fantasy is chock full of sexism and racism. A lot of authors don't even realize they're doing it, and a lot of readers don't know they're reading it. That's what makes it so scary in some cases.

Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.

Do you just want to get by? Or do you want to make me proud?

Just pity him, my boy. Tomorrow we'll be on our way, but he'll have to keep his own disagreeable company until the day he dies.

I do this so you cannot help but hear. A wise man views a moonless night with fear.

But even this piece of flattery couldn't distract me from the fact that I was in the center of the Fae realm, blind, stark naked, and without the slightest idea of what was going on.

When someone writes something dazzlingly brilliant, people want to imitate it. The result is a lot of less-than-brilliant knock-offs. Elves, Dwarves, Goblin army, cursed ring, evil sorcerer. Tolkien did it. It rocked. Let's move on. Let's do something new.