“Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales, dead lan...” — Laini Taylor Quote

“Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales, dead languages, weird folk beliefs, fascinating religions, and more.”

“I think with world building, it's important to create a sense of culture even if it is just a fantasy, and the best way to do that is to look at a real human culture and see what makes it cohesive.”

“Once upon a time there was a silence that dreamed of becoming a song, and then I found you, and now everything is music.”

“It's not like there's a law against flying.”

“I'm afraid they're in love," he said, concerned. "They don't want to leave you." He lifted one hand from her waist to gently brush a pair from her neck, where their wings fanned against her jaw. Melancholy, he said, "I know just how they feel.”

“During my second draft pass on my last book I made 20,000 words happen in a week, which is practically supernatural for me, and it would never have been possible without three nights in a hotel in my own city.”

“Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.”

“Bishop, I hear the frustration, and I won’t pretend every voice coming out of Jerusalem is measured. Some speak too loudly, too possessively. But Judaism isn’t an excuse; it’s a memory of exile and return that has lasted longer than most empires. For many of us, the land isn’t conquest; it’s the only place where we were ever allowed to stop running. I don’t defend every policy, every settlement, every excess. I only ask for the same nuance you would want for your own Church’s long history of power and error.”

“O comportamento ritual não só revela realidades práticas e mundanas, é também um teatro vivo da psicologia colectiva e uma das mais ricas expressões da ideologia e crenças - mentalidade - de uma sociedade. Afinal de contas, como os antropólogos notaram, a religião é mais do que um padrão de relações sociais: é uma expressão da capacidade humana para imaginar a estrutura da sociedade. O ritual religioso não é apenas construção cultural: é uma forma de cognição que constrói modelos de realidade e paradigmas de comportamento. E dentro deste processo pelo qual a realidade é definida, o ritual da morte joga um papel central.”

“The question becomes: How to make an entire species self-destruct? What is the most effective system of annihilation? Religion. It's a tool, and any tool has a right and a wrong use. And this particular tool has already been mishandled and manipulated by a thousand different masters. Fear, obedience, sacrifice, fanatic loyalty: these are the fruits religion cultivates in a nurturing hand.”