For we are all bound in stories, and as the years pile up they turn to stone, layer upon layer, building our lives.

If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in? That village, that city, that life? We are desperate with our dreams. What - oh, what - does that say?

The notion of evil for its own sake strikes me as boring -- all these Dark Lords intent on creating wastelands packed with enslaved victims... for what?

A story invites both writer and reader into a kind of superficial ease: we want to slide along, pleasingly entertained, lost in the fictional dream.

Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.

"There's little value in seeking to find reasons for why people do what they do, or feel the way they feel. Hatred is a most pernicious thing, finding root in any kind of soil. It feeds on itself." "With words."

All they get around here is stories. Stories don't make you bleed. Stories don't make you go hungry, don't give you sore feet. When you're young smelling of pigshit and convinced there ain't a weapon in all the damn world that's going to hurt you, all stories do is make you want to be part of them.