I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast.

I mean the only thing us dead soldiers got in common is that none of us was good enough or lucky enough to survive the fight. We're a host of failures.

Believe it or not, friendships are difficult to write in fiction. They can easily come across as forced, particularly if they involve too much explication and too many overt gestures of affection.

The only death I fear is dying ignorant.

No purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine.

And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo. The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets in the City of Blue Fire.

Such is the vastness of his genius that he can outwit even himself.