As I leafed through the book in front of me and watched the dust swirl in the air, I wondered if maybe there was some evil dormant virus in the pages that would infect me, like the mummy dust that used to kill archaeologists. Death by research. That was not a glorious end.

This won't stop her from getting elected," Shane said. "Stupider people get elected all the time. It's America. We love the sleazy. And the crazy." "I would like to think better of us," Claire said, "but yeah. You're right.

I think at some level, it's just alchemy that we, as writers, can't explain when we write the characters. I don't set out to create the characters - they're not, to me, collections of quirks that I can put together. I discover the characters, instead. I usually go through a standard set of interview questions with the character in the beginning and ask the vital stuff: What's important to you? What do you love? Hate? Fear? .. and then I know where to start. But the characters just grow on their own, at a certain point. And start surprising me.

Jason: I'm all for hobbies, but you think this is the time for origami? Whatcha making, a crane?

(Djinn are essentially vapor.) "I blew him away.

You know," I said to Michael, "my girlfriend took him down with a broken tree branch." "Too bad she isn't here," he said.

I'm worried he's going to ... do something crazy." "He lives in a hole in the ground, dresses funny, and occasionally eats his assistants," Eve said. "Define crazy.