It's just that no one wants to be the one being rescued, we all want to do the rescuing.

Why do you work so hard to make yourself disliked? I should think you'd find it happens enough on its own without putting yourself to any extra trouble.

The novel should be understood as a structure built to accommodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff.

Appropriate action means to advance your own goals, without unintentional harm to anyone else.

Because here’s the thing: No matter how much one tells stories of magical beasts or impossible worlds, in the end, it is always the world of here and now one is writing about. The better one understands that world, the more powerful the stories will be.

The others followed, and found themselves in a small, stuffy basement, which would have been damp, smelly, close, and dark, were it not, in fact, well-lit, which prevented it from being dark.

Everybody generalizes from one example. At least, I do.