Brian Mearns

“The thing I do with maps. I've always wondered if it isn't some kind of intuition, better than what everyone else has, but the same sort of thing: whittling unconsciously through possibilities until I arrive at the sole possibility, the truth. Like being very, very good at guessing, so good that sometimes the angels indulge me and make my guess right even when it isn't[...]”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“She could not envision a God who demanded such particularity of belief, whose mercy and forgiveness were confined to such a precise segment of humankind.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“There is so a real poem," said Fatima, annoyed. "The real Conference of the Birds was written by someone, by a real person. He had certain intentions. I want to know what they are. He wrote the poem for a reason, and the reason matters."

"Does it?" Vikram stretched his toes, revealing a row of claws as black as obsidian. "Once a story leaves the hand of its author, it belongs to the reader. And the reader may see any number of things, conflicting things, contradictory things. The author goes silent. If what he intended matter so very much, there would be no need for inquisitions, schisms and wars. But he is silent, silent. The author of the poem is silent, the author of the world is silent. We are left with no intentions but our own.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King

“God isn't like that. He knows we've all got things we can't do or can't stop. It doesn't follow that we're excused from those things we can do and can stop.”
― G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King