Abi Brown

“It goes something like this. You'’re walking along minding your own business, or you'’re on the underground or you’'re on a bus or something, but generally you’'re not paying much attention. And suddenly you look around and see all these other people and think, ‘Hey, they can look at me and see me and I can see in my mind what I think they see, and when I’'m gone they’'re going to keep on walking and they’r'e going to go and live their lives, and their thoughts are going to be just like mine, but different, but real and solid and alive and full of feeling and confusion and colour just like life, and, hey, isn’t that cool!’ And it is.
And roughly around this time you'’re going to notice that you can feel trains under your feet or pipes bubbling, and you can hear the sound of traffic and voices and stuff; and then you’'ll probably look up at the things around you and think, ‘Those buildings with the lights on look almost alive, like giant trees lit up with their own constellation of stars in every window,’ or maybe not if you'’re underground; and you’'ll realise that you can see the city all around, and it’'s so full of lives and life, and they'’re all buzzing around you, and every single individual is real and alive and passionate and full of mystery, and it'’s not just Joe Bloggs walking by who’'s like this, but that every part of the city is crawling with life. And you'’ll think, ‘Hey, that'’s pretty damn sweet, everywhere I look there'’s life,’ and roughly around that point you'’ll realise you can hear rats and pigeons and thoughts and spells and colours and electricity, and that’'s probably when you started going a bit mad.”
― Kate Griffin, A Madness of Angels

“Magic is life,’ and that’s not quite right. You think that the study of magic, the understanding of it, gives you some sort of better grasp of life. Unfortunately, even I worked out that this isn’t quite true; it’s a bit skewed, see? We understand this. Magic is not life. Life is magic. Even the boring, plodding, painful, cold, cruel parts, even the mundane automatic reflexes, heart pumping, lungs breathing, stomach digesting, even the uninteresting dull processes of walking, swinging the knees and seeing with eyes, this is magic. This is what makes magic.”
― Kate Griffin, A Madness of Angels

“I'm telling you stories. Trust me.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

“She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.”
― Charles Bukowski