Magic Is Wild, Dangerous Stuff.

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? A Magician Is Strong Because He Hurts More Than Others. His Wound Is His Strength.

Most People Carry That Pain Around Inside Them Their Whole Lives, Until They Kill The Pain By Other Means, Or Until It Kills Them. But You, My Friends, You Found Another Way: A Way To Use The Pain. To Burn It As Fuel, For Light And Warmth. You Have Learned To Break The World That Has Tried To Break You.

He Wasn't Surprised. He Was Used To This Anticlimactic Feeling, Where By The Time You've Done All The Work To Get Something You Don't Even Want It Anymore.

I'm A Fantasy Writer. I Don't Do Sf. This Is Important To Me. If You're Not Clear On What Genre You're In, Everything Gets Muddled, And It's Hard To Know Which Rules You're Breaking.

Wasn't There A Spell For Making Yourself Happy? Somebody Must Have Invented One. How Could He Have Missed It? Why Didn't They Teach It? Was It In The Library, A Flying Book Fluttering Just Out Of Reach, Beating Its Wings Against Some High Window?