He was appalled by the examination system, when it was explained to him, he could not imagine a greater detterent to the natural wish to learn than this pattern of cramming in information and disgorging it on demand.

Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together.

As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.

To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.

The reader can't take much for granted in a fiction where the scenery can eat the characters.

But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need.

What you select from, in order to tell your story, is nothing less than everything. What you build up your world from, your local, intelligible rational, coherent world, is nothing less than everything. . . . . All human knowledge is local. Every life, each human life is local, is arbitrary, the infinitesimal momentary glitter of a reflection.