"Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue)."

"If all that I was actually going to be allowed to have by the media was money, loads of money, then fuck it … What I actually wanted was something quiet and simple: a writer's community and respect."

"The pages of most books were of mottled parchment, that is, dried sheepskin, which was universally available—and nowhere more abundant than in Ireland, whose bright green fields still host each April …"

"My dear friend, a doctor and spokeperson of the Physicians' Coordinating Committee in Damascus was killed today by Syrian security forces"

"I make them for the worst of the patients, the ones on chemotherapy and the ones totally wasting away. I pick out the worst of the worst and turn them on."