By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn’t doing it.

his mind spinning and lurching like a dryer with a shoe in it

Emily Greenstreet was one of these girls that nobody ever notices, who are only friends with other girls nobody notices. Nobody likes or dislikes them. They have weak chins, or chicken-pox scars, or their glasses...

The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?

He was in the right place. He was living his best life. How many other people in the multiverse could say that?

A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was?...

This is a feeling that you had, Quentin, she said. Once, a very long time ago. A rare one. This is how you felt when you were eight years old, and you opened one of...

I’ve learned that the creative life may or may not be the apex of human civilization, but either way it’s not what I thought it was. It doesn’t make you special and sparkly. You don’t...

It’s time to live with what we have and mourn what we lost.

It was so much easier to be angry. Being angry made him feel strong, even though– and this contradiction did nothing to diminish his anger– he was angry only because his position was so weak.

…In books there’s always somebody standing by ready to say hey, the world’s in danger, evil’s on the rise, but if you’re really quick and take this ring and put it in that volcano over...

You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.

You just had to get some idea of what matters and what doesn’t, and how much, and try not to be scared of the stuff that doesn’t. Put it in perspective.

Up until relatively recently, creating original characters from scratch wasn’t a major part of an author’s job description. When Virgil wrote The Aeneid, he didn’t invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer’s Odyssey...

Quentin was thin and tall, though he habitually hunched his shoulders in a vain attempt to brace himself against whatever blow was coming from the heavens, and which would logically hit the tall people first.