“Madness. I did not get myself born to die. I have better things to do.”

“Azhrarn the Beautiful," said Chuz lovingly, "it is your beautiful madness I have come to see.”

“I'm not very good at being alive. Sometimes I despair of ever mastering it, getting it right. When I'm old, perhaps.”

“The Vazdru do not weep.""Who weeps? Not I.""Every word spoken was a tear.”

“When I write, I go to live inside the book. By which I mean, mentally I can experience everything I’m writing about. I can see it, hear its sounds, feel its heat or rain. The characters become better known to me than the closest family or friends. This makes the writing-down part very simple most of the time. I only need to describe what’s already there in front of me. That said, it won’t be a surprise if I add that the imagined worlds quickly become entangled with the so-called reality of this one.Since I write almost every day, and I think (and dream) constantly about my work, it occurs to me I must spend more time in all these places than here.”

“It was not apathy. It was an intelligent disinterest in those things that could have no bearing on one's existence.”

“I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special little death.”