Make Magic Quotes & Sayings

You're almost there already. Just imagine what you want to happen. And then concentrate on that, and only on that. The magic is everywhere. It's waiting for you to take it and make it your own. — Danielle Paige

Squinting in the darkness Anya could just make out a strange curving symbol scratched into the bark. Baba Zosia scored a line through it, disfiguring the symbol. Anya felt something in the air change and give, like the forest had let out a breath it had been holding around them. Something like static pricked the back of her neck as Baba Zosia cut her finger and smeared blood on the tree. The strange symbol melted into the bark, healing the tree to appear like nothing had been carved on it to begin with. Lifting her hands towards the campsite Baba Zosia started to chant softly in the complicated language of the tribe. Magic thrummed through the air, making Anya's own flare and itch under her skin. She rubbed her arms to stop it. Around her a breeze picked up and the campground, with its tracks in the mud and stains from the fires all melted away until there was nothing but autumn leaf litter and debris in its place. It looked like it hadn't been disturbed for years. — Amy Kuivalainen

I believe in a different kind of magic. The kind we make between each other. — Charles De Lint

Medicine and society have entered into a folie a deaux regarding medicine's importance in gigantic population ills. We believe that genetics and pills and enzymes bring us health. We wait for the dementia cure (the obesity cure, the diabetes cure) rather than changing our society to decrease incidence and severity. We slash social welfare programs and access to GPs and ignore the downstream effect this will have on future generations.
To reduce non-communicable disease, the actions we need to take are societal: make it easier for people to move and eat well, strengthen education, promote community participation and meaningful work. Our collective delusion is that we can have all the benefits such a society would bring without the structural supports necessary to bring it into being, that we can attain health by inventing and buying drugs.
It is hard to know which is the more utopian vision: magic pills or a society serious about prevention. — Karen Hitchcock

Im's offspring stare at stars and make clocks that calculate useless happenings like the angle of a hawk's claws as it strikes its prey. They demonstrate their contraptions and everyone marvels. My children get drunk, confuse a herd of cows with an enemy regiment, and slaughter the lot, screaming like lunatics until the entire army panics. — Ilona Andrews

The impression is that love is something that happens to you like magic. That love is something others do for you, but that you cannot do for yourself. Love is not something you wait for. Love doesn't just happen. Love is something you do. When you want love, give love. Moment to moment, you make the choice whether to give love and be loved. — Jennifer James

I will now make a scorpion appear in Osama bin Laden's pants — David Copperfield

And it's only symbolism puts magic and meaning into anything. You of all people should know that. We can make love amongst the gods, or we can screw on a dirty mattress. It's our choice. — Alan Moore

The only magic that's left in the world right now is the magic that we make ourselves, deliberately. You're not going to stumble over enchantment by chance. You have to be open to it, looking for it, and when you first think you might have glimpsed it, you have to will it into your life with every machination available to you. — Megan Lindholm

I'll make my own magic — A.D.Y. Howle

When people ask about relationships, they always say, "How did you guys meet?" Not, "OMG, tell me about your third year! And when a relationship is in trouble, the desperate couple is always trying to recapture the magic of when they first met. The real tragedy is that, without time travel or amnesia, it's impossible to ever get back there. Which is why to most people, marriage is about as magical as watching David Copperfield make Claudia Schiffer disappear. — Shane Kuhn

Plain fresh bread, its crust shatteringly crisp. Sweet cold butter. There is magic in the way they come together in your mouth to make a single perfect bite. — Ruth Reichl

The theatre is an attack on mankind carried on by magic: to victimize an audience every night, to make them laugh and cry and suffer and miss their trains. Of course actors regard audiences as enemies, to be deceived, drugged, incarcerated, stupefied. This is partly because the audience is also a court against which there is no appeal. — Iris Murdoch

The constitution of our country says that all men are created equal, but it's a lie. I'll never be able to make a jump shot like Magic Johnson, or drive a car like Mario Andretti, or paint like Picasso. We are not created equal in talent. But the place where we are least equal is the heart. You can work at a talent, take lessons, but love, love either works or it doesn't. You love someone or you don't. You can't change it. You can't undo it. - A Lick of Frost — Laurell K. Hamilton

A hit show takes Hollywood magic indeed, but it also takes a lot of math and science, plus the study of polls and trends to make and sell a TV show. — Kristoffer Polaha

Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone round the Christmas fire, and make the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete. — Charles Dickens

Here's the best thing about being a writer: it's like having a magic wand to make whatever you want happen to imaginary people in a made-up world.

Here's the worst thing about being a writer: it makes you wish even more that you had a magic wand to make whatever you want happen to actual people in your own real life" -Autumn — Claudia Mills

If I can't read, if I can't make a simple Indian pudding, then I don't see the point in living much more, really. Because aside from a good book, and perhaps, a fresh morning in a dew-covered garden, few things in life give me as much pleasure as magic of making a truly spectacular dessert. — Sarah Strohmeyer

M is for magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly. You can make magic with them, and dreams, and, I hope, even a few surprises ... — Neil Gaiman

I think that a true economics thinker or a Marxist thinker would make nonsense of my argument, although I have given massive seminars and no one has demolished it so far. I did think that this idea from an artisanal and trading perception of the auratic quality of goods when they are given character and inscription, made the stories of phantasmic wealth read more powerfully in the 18th and 19th centuries than the stories of Cinderella's wealth, because they are conjured out of nothing by these magic means. — Marina Warner

Over the course of the years, I've learned [that] fashion is a fascinating business about selling magic. It is done on the backs of our optimism and our insecurity. It is as much psychology as commerce. But I've also learned that every day we make split second decisions about people based on their attire and those decisions can have powerful implications - see the story of Trayvon Martin and his hoodie. It's important for us to understand how fashion works and how we connect to it. — Robin Givhan

Make your life a magical journey of Life, encountering Life. — Donald L. Hicks

She isn't a storm or a leader or a king or a war or anyone whose life and death makes noise. The problem is words. There is skin, yes. And then, inside that, there is your language, the casual, inherited magic spells taht make your skin real. It's too late now
even if we could say "Shut up" or "Where's my dinner?" in the first language, the real language, the words weren't born in us. And unless your skin and your language touch each other without interruption, there is no word strong enough to make you understand that it matters that you live. The things that really "stay" are an Orisha, a kind night, a pretended boy, a garden song that made no sense. Those come closer to being enough. — Helen Oyeyemi

That words could cause something in the world, make someone move or stop, laugh or cry: even as a child he had found it extraordinary and it never stopped impressing him. How did words do that? Wasn't it like magic? — Pascal Mercier

Hither,hither, from thy home,airy sprite, i bid thee come! born of roses, fed on dew, charms and potions canst thow brew? bring me here, with elfin speed,the fragment philter witch i need; make it sweet and swift and stong, spirite amserw now my song
hither i come, from my airy home, afar silver moon. take magic spell, and use it well. or its powers will vanish soon! — Louisa May Alcott

I have been performing in the street for more than 50 years: magic for basically 60 years, and the high wire 45 years. The beauty of it is that it's never the same. It's never easy. And yet, part of my art is to make it look easy. — Philippe Petit

As a little girl I always expected that one day adventure would happen to me - someday a tornado would whisk me away to Oz, or I'd fall down a rabbit hole, or David Bowie would kidnap me and take me to his labyrinth where he'd sing me songs and feed me magic peaches. (I still sorta wish David Bowie would kidnap me, but that's beside the point.) As I get older, I realize you have to make adventure happen for yourself. I hope this cookbook helps you, dear reader, to make some tasty adventures for yourself - and maybe throw some really awesome LARP parties. — Cassandra Reeder

Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.
"Er ... aren't you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?" said her mother, who'd never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.
"No, Mum, I'm supposed not to," said Tiffany, still scrubbing.
"But can't you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?"
"The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is," said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. "I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe."
Mrs. Aching backed away. "I thought you just had to wave your hands about," she mumbled nervously.
"That works," said Tiffany, "but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush. — Terry Pratchett

He pointed at Abby's electric-blue pumps. "Women wear these evil creations around to confuse us. Sure, they make a girl's legs look good, but that's the black magic, my friends. They want us to feel their pain and not understand why. — Tessa Bailey

And when the sun sets ... then the night magic spreads out above your head; worlds and universes a-borning and a-dying - stars and planets and galaxies. And the bigger the telescope they can make, and the farther into the beyond they are able to penetrate, the greater grows the mystery. — Paul Gallico

When he is away from her, he tries to conjure up her face. He closes his eyes, but the magic eludes him. When they are together he watches, learning her features, her gestures. Still, afterwards, he cannot make it happen. It is as though when she does she takes everything of herself with her. — Aminatta Forna

He leaned forward then and put his face in the crook of my neck, so he could smell the warmth rising from it. His nose touched my skin, just enough to make me shiver.
When he spoke again, it was right next to my ear, and his voice was deep, and his breath moved the fine hairs on my ear, starting a vibration deep within my eardrum. "But that smell, right there," He murmured, "That smell is all you. I love that smell too. I want to wear that smell on my skin and roll around in it. I want to live in that smell alone."
Wounded
(Bracken to Cory) — Amy Lane

Otherwise he'll always be worrying about what she thinks of him. It's her eyes on him that make him so afraid of his magic. He'd be much happier and less worried without her around. As would I, frankly. I don't particularly like dragons who point sharp things at me. — Tui T. Sutherland

You're not powerful enough to do anything like that," said Tiffany. "You know, you are right," said the Queen. "That kind of physical magic is, indeed, very hard. But I can make you think I've done the most ... terrible things. And that, little girl, is all I need to do. Would you like to beg for mercy now? You may not be able to later. — Terry Pratchett

Just because it's common doesn't make it less powerful. — Kendall Kulper

That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms. — Khaled Hosseini

The seventh lesson is about alchemy. By any measure, alchemy is magical. You can't turn lead into gold by heating it, beating it, molding it into different shapes, or combining it with any known substance. Those are simply physical changes. Likewise, you will never cause an inner transformation by taking your old self and hammering it with criticism, heating it up with exciting experiences, reshaping how you look physically, or connecting with new people. How, then, does the magic work? It works according to the principles that make up the universe's operating system. When you consciously align with them, you give yourself an opening for transformation. — Deepak Chopra

There is no one magic move or secret that creates victory, but lots of little items that when added together can make you victorious. — Bill Toomey

You are not yourself in autobiography. It is never going to be you, it is only words on a page. Memories are unreliable, so adding the magic of imagination will make your story come alive. — K.H. Rennie

Why did they believe? Because they saw miracles. Things one man took as chance, a man of faith took as a sign. A loved one recovering from disease, a fortunate business deal, a chance meeting with a long lost friend. It wasn't the grand doctrines or the sweeping ideals that seemed to make believers out of men. It was the simple magic in the world around them. — Brandon Sanderson

Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement - that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic. — Charles Fort

When something flipping out to the worse, don't feel bad. But be strong and make yourself hard so that the situations stop taking chance to hurt you. — Giridhar Alwar

White magic is black magic. a less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people, and demons used for good can hang around and make mischief afterwards. — Iris Murdoch

You can't wish for more wishes or for vague generalities like happiness that are impossible to grant. Your wish has to be something specific enough that I can use my wand to make it happen. Oh, and recently there's been a ban on inserting yourself into the Twilight series. The Cullens are tired of different teenage girls pinging into their story every time they turn around. — Janette Rallison

The magic of life is its imprecision, the multiple narratives constantly unfolding before us. Every step we take, every decision we make, reshuffles the deck of our lives and sets a new trajectory of possibility in motion. — Jamie Metzl

Appellate review is not a magic wand and we undermine public confidence in the judicial process when we make it look like it is. — Alex Kozinski

You make magic,' he exclaimed, 'without even trying'. — Mette Jakobsen

Gregorius was never to forget this scene. They were his first Portuguese words in the real world and they worked. That words could cause something in the world, make someone move or stop, laugh or cry: even as a child he had found it enigmatic and it had never stopped impressing him. How did words do that? Wasn't it like magic?But at this moment, the mystery seemed greater than usual, for these were words he hadn't even known yesterday morning. — Pascal Mercier

I'll be fine. Maybe I should make up a magic milk bath with the Golden Fruit, huh?" I laughed.
Kishan considered and grinned. "A giant bowlful of milk with you in the middle might be a little too much for us cats to resist. — Colleen Houck

Is there anything in the world better than words on the page? Magic signs, the voices of the dead, building blocks to make wonderful worlds better than this one, comforters, companions in loneliness. Keepers of secrets, speakers of the truth ... all those glorious words. — Cornelia Funke

Tuoni takes her by the shoulders and turns her to face him. "Remember this Anya. Dreams have power; they show old truths you are too blind to see on waking. They make you remember memories that are lost in the blood flowing through your veins. Remember her magic. Remember what she did when you wake," he says before he pushes her off the cliff. — Amy Kuivalainen

There's a fog of fae magic on the first floor of the house," he told her. "Where's Charles?" "Downstairs," she told him. "He sent me up here to make sure nothing happened to the kids." "There's a pool of blood just outside the door," he whispered, stepping aside so Anna could see it while the kids were preoccupied. "Chelsea's blood. I can't scent her through the stink of fae magic that is coating this house. — Patricia Briggs

If I had coal and fire
And metal fine and true
I'd make an iron band
An iron band for you
I'd pick up all the pieces
From where they fell that day
Fit them back together
And take the pain away
But I don't have the iron
And I don't have the steel
To wrap around your broken heart
And teach it how to heal
Somewhere in the fire
Somewhere in the pain
I'd find the magic that I need
To make you whole again
I'd make the iron band so strong
I'd make it gleam so bright
I'd fix the things I've broken
I'd turn my wrongs to right
But I don't have the steel
To wrap around your broken heart
Wish I could make it heal
Wish I could make it heal
(Ch. 27) — Jennifer Donnelly

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song. — Bruno Mars

The most fundamental, basic need in magick, is the development of the will. The magus says, "I will, and not heaven nor hell can stop me." It is in this forming and growing, creating, of the will, where heaven and hell learns to follow the will of the magus. A person who wants to develop the soul must never say, "Maybe" or "If I see a sign" because the master creates his own signs. If you need a star to align in front of a tree because that to you would be a sign, then you make the star align with the tree, if not in this world, in the other worlds and in the other dimensions. There are no "ifs" and there are no "maybes" there are only "I wills." This is the basic platform of magick, and most people never get past it, because not all can. — C. JoyBell C.

Potter,' she said in ringing tones, 'I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last thing I do! If I have to coach you nightly, I will make sure you achieve the required results!'
'The Minister for Magic will never employ Harry Potter!' said Umbridge, her voice rising furiously.
'There may well be a new Minister for Magic by the time Potter is ready to join!' shouted Professor McGonagall.
'Aha!' shrieked Professor Umbridge, pointing a stubby finger at McGonagall. 'Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Of course! That's what you want, isn't it, Minerva McGonagall? You want Cornelius Fudge replace by Albus Dumbledore! You think you'll be where I am, don't you: Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and Headmistress to boot!'
'You are raving,' said Professor McGonagall, superbly disdainful. — J.K. Rowling

Maybe it's not a lesson so much as it's a magic trick. You can make a little girl into anything if you say the right words. Take her apart until all that's left is her red, red heart thumping against the world. Stitch her up again real good. Now, maybe you get a woman. If you're lucky. If that's what you were after. Just as easy to end up with a blackbird or a circus bear or a coyote. Or a parrot, just saying what's said to you, doing what's done to you, copying until it comes so natural that even when you're all alone you keep on cawing hello pretty bird at the dark. — Catherynne M Valente

When you think a girl looks pretty, say it. But don't reference the thing that might reveal you are aware of the backstage process: e.g., say, "You look gorgeous tonight," not "I like how you did your makeup tonight." Also, a compliment means less if you compliment the thing and not the way the girl is carrying it off. So say, "You look so sexy in those boots," rather than "Those boots are really cool." I didn't make the boots! I don't care if you like the boots' design! We are magic to you: you have no idea how we got to look as good as we do. — Mindy Kaling

Normally, I do magic on the stage. But I can make magic credible and resonate through a TV screen. — David Copperfield

My mother was always trying to think up plans for what she would do if the Taliban came. She thought of sleeping with a knife under her pillow. I said I could sneak into the toilet and call the police. My brothers and I thought of digging a tunnel. Once again I prayed for a magic wand to make the Taliban disappear. — Malala Yousafzai

Whoever's reading this out there - you deserve to have someone's hands be glued to you, for their eyes to be stuck on you. You deserve for their face to catch on fire when they look at you, for them to lay eyes on you and devote the rest of their day to you. Don't ever let yourself settle for anything less than magic from Dumbledore's freakin' wand. That feeling - you know, that crazy, irrational, my-brain-won't-work-without-you, I'd-make-you-eggs-every-morning-for-the-rest-of-my-life - that feeling is the most important thing you will ever find. No matter what happens in this life, that feeling - that love - will keep you warm, and carry you through. So find that magic feeling and never let anythng take it away from you. — Seth King

That was magic for you, right? The thing about magic, the real kind: it didn't make excuses, and it was never funny. — Lev Grossman

I think part of my purpose in this life is to talk about magic, and to make it. — Theodora Goss

If you want some advice - which I'm sure you don't - you guys should lay off on the magic. Christian still thinks you're moving in on Lissa."
"What?" he asked in mock astonishment. "Doesn't he know my heart belongs to you?"
"It does not. And no, he's still worried about it, despite what I've told him."
"You know, I bet if we started making out right now, it would make him feel better."
"If you touch me," I said pleasantly, "I'll provide you with the opportunity to see if you can heal yourself. Then we'd see how badass you really are. — Richelle Mead

You asked me if I believed in magic, and I said yes, and that's how. You just step out, start pulling your life out of the air. You make friends, you find work you really like doing, you find places. You find diners and Laundromats. You find beaches. You find a junk car and drive it for a month, then lave it beside the road. You find someone to fall in love with you. You make it all up as you go. Or, you know, maybe it makes you up. — Brad Barkley

The object of a dialogical-liberterian action is not to 'dislodge' the oppressed from a mythological reality in order to 'bind' them to another reality. On the contrary, the object of dialogical action is to make it possible for the oppressed, by perceiving their adhesion, to opt to transform an unjust reality." "In order for the oppressed to unite they must first cut the umbilical cord of magic and myth which binds them to the world of oppression; the unity which links them to each other must be of a different nature. — Paulo Freire

It's a good thing you don't bring Lily in to the bar. If they see what a beautiful baby you made, we'll have to double our napkin orders."
He propped his elbows on the bar so his face was very close to hers.
"I can't make magic like Lily with any woman but you. — Shannon Stacey

I had My Little Ponies. I was obsessed with the idea of a creature that was born with something magical that sort of made them the misfit in the world of the stallion. I'm actually quite obsessed with unicorns. They are in essence a mythical creature. The unicorn is born magical and it's not the unicorn's fault and it doesn't make it any more or less special or any less unique but it can't help that it was born with that magic. — Lady Gaga

Life was invented for kids. But then we all grow up, and society imposes filters that block the joy of silliness and sponging up pointless little things that make childhood the magic time for which it is widely known. — Tim Dorsey

You will make the world a magnificent place with the magic of your kindness, beauty, peace, and happiness. — Debasish Mridha

It's hard to read through a book on the principles of magic without glancing at the cover periodically to make sure it isn't a book on software design. — Bruce Tognazzini

When I used to play golf. It's a terrible miserable game. It's incredibly frustrating. In 18 holes you make 150 horrible shots off in the woods, in the water ... You make one good shot and it brings you back the next time. With writing a long book there has to be at least one bit that has some magic in it that you can go back to. — Alan Lightman

Most magicians consider the palm an easy move to make. They are inclined to believe that they are 'getting away with it,' when they are in fact fortunate enough to have a polite audience. — Dai Vernon

With all the magic in Oz, with all the magic the witches had taught me, there was one trick I still hadn't mastered: how to make people stay. — Danielle Paige

That don't make sense."
"Of course not," he said. "It's magic. — Cassandra Rose Clarke

The dress was a deep red, strapless and practically backless, and I was almost positive my maids had used magic to make it stay up at all. — Kiera Cass

The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and be able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. — J.R.R. Tolkien

His were always lighthearted notes from the places they'd visited, scrawled in the limited space on the back of the cards, whereas hers tended to be longer and slightly rambling, unrestricted by the confines of paper. But sitting there with the cursor blinking at him, he wasn't sure what to say. There was something too immediate about an e-mail, the idea that she might get it in mere moments, that just one click of the mouse would make it appear on her screen in an instant, like magic. He realized how much he preferred the safety of a letter, the physicality of it, the distance it had to cross on its way from here to there, which felt honest and somehow more real. — Jennifer E. Smith

Magic can make things happen before you do it. It can make things have happened. — Jo Walton

Magic is, in its core, introverted and closed; it's the most closed community ever, and I want to change all that and make it more open. If we want things to change, we have to be more open-minded. — Marco Tempest

Sometimes when deep magic is before you, it can be taken as something quite ordinary. Only when looking back does one question what had just taken place, and make note that it had been queer or unusual. The deeper a magic is, the more normal it can appear. — Gabriel Brunsdon

As soon as she stepped in the door, the wonderful smell of books hit her, easing the tension from her neck and shoulders. This was a place of magic to her, where one selection could make you weep with despair and another might make you laugh for days. It was a world of possibility, intelligence, and inspiration, and she'd always secretly considered herself to be queen of this particular kingdom. — Beau North

Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. Dream large. Then make the dream real. — Donald Wills Douglas

Stardust is
the hardest thing
to hold out for.
You must make of yourself
a perfect plane-
something still
upon which
something settles-
something like
sugar grains on
something like
metal, but with
none of the chill.
It's hard to explain.
Stardust — Kay Ryan

Credit expansion is the governments' foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether, to finance lavish government spending, to expropriate the capitalists, to contrive everlasting booms, and to make everybody prosperous. — Ludwig Von Mises

Most women, when they ask me for beauty tips aren't really prepared for my answer, which is, there is no magic beauty wand that can transform you and make you beautiful. It takes practice and what you see on Rupaul's Drag Race is years and years of practice. — RuPaul

There is some magic in wealth, which can thus make persons pay their court to it, when it does not even benefit themselves. — Ann Radcliffe

Someone once said that the best technology is indistinguishable from magic. Clark now had the best magic act in Silicon Valley. The best magic act attracted many of the best engineers. In the Valley it often did. The Valley had given engineers a place where they could make their living outside the enormous gray corporations that expected them to conform. It — Michael Lewis

They are made to believe they cannot behave without their imaginary friend watching over them. Some of them set out to demonstrate this too. They feel they have no purpose without this magic father in the sky, and their leaders make it so they are too weak willed to have any purpose other than being steered like a herd of tranquilized cattle. Looking to an imaginary paradise, which will never come, they pledge their real lives to slavery, keeping themselves captive. — Damien Ba'al

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.
Daniel H. Burnham — Erik Larson

You're a wizard," I snapped. "Can't you just use magic to make your own food?"
"Ah, yes," he retorted. "Because mud pies are so very delicious and the wind fills empty stomachs quite nicely. — Alexandra Bracken

It was a story to tell myself, a promise. Saying out loud, "You're never going to touch me again" - that was a piece of magic, magic in the belly, the domed kingdom of sex, the terror place inside where rage and power live. Whiskey rush without whiskey, bravado and determination, this place where for the first time I knew no confusion, only outrage and pride. In the worst moments of my life, I have told myself that story, the story about a girl who stood up to a monster. Doing that, I make a piece of magic inside myself, magic to use against the meanness of the world. — Dorothy Allison

Everyone always talks about the magic of books being able to take you to other places, to let you see exotic worlds, to make you experience new and interesting things. Well, do you think words alone can do this? Of course not! If you've ever thought that books are boring, it's because you don't know how to read them correctly. From now on, when you read a book, I want you to scream the words of the novel out loud while reading them, then do exactly what the characters are doing in the story. Trust me, it will make books way more exciting. Even dictionaries. Particularly dictionaries. — Brandon Sanderson

If you think ahead to what to say next - like how to fix it or make the person feel better - BOOM! Off the board. You're into the future. Empathy requires staying with the energy that's here right now. Not using any technique. Just being present. When I have really connected to this energy, it's like I wasn't there. I call this "watching the magic show". In this presence, a very precious energy works through us that can heal anything, and this relieves me from my "fix-it" tendencies. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Don't make a sound!" she whispered, giving me a little shake. "I need your help."
Damn! She had given the female password - spoken those magic words that stretched back through the mists of time to a bond made in some primordial swamp. — Alan Bradley

All fiction for me is a kind of magic and trickery, a confidence trick, trying to make people believe something is true that isn't. — Angus Wilson

[W]hen the modern mythmaker, the writer of literary fairy tales, dares to touch the old magic and try to make it work in new ways, it must be done with the surest of touches. It is, perhaps, a kind of artistic thievery, this stealing of old characters, settings, the accoutrements of magic. But then, in a sense, there is an element of theft in all art; even the most imaginative artist borrows and reconstructs the archetypes when delving into the human heart. That is not to say that using a familiar character from folklore in the hopes of shoring up a weak narrative will work. That makes little sense. Unless the image, character, or situation borrowed speaks to the author's condition, as cryptically and oracularly as a dream, folklore is best left untapped. — Jane Yolen

What could make my life better? Oh, if I could only find that magic bottle that lets you never have to sleep. I have so much stuff I wanna do, but ... That six or seven hours you have to be in bed with your eyes closed. What a waste! — Robert Rodriguez

Well, what do we do now?" Caramon asked, sitting astride his horse and looking both up and down the stream.
" 'You're' the expert on women," Raistlin retorted.
"All right, I made a mistake," Caramon grumbled. "That doesn't help us. It'll be dark soon, and then we'll never find her trail. I haven't heard you come up with any helpful suggestions," he grumbled, glancing at his brother balefully. "Can't you magic up something?"
"I would have 'magicked up' brains for you long time ago, if I could have," Raistlin snapped peevishly. "What would you like me to do?-make her appear out of thin air or look for her in my crystal ball? No, I won't waste my strength. Besides it's not necessary. Have you a map, or did you manage to think that far ahead? — Margaret Weis

Marie Caroline Jensen, will you marry me?" he asked suddenly, looking right into my eyes. I bit my lip, trying to decide how long to drag it out. Maybe a little longer ... he'd used the "b" word, I should probably make him suffer. I looked away, refusing to meet his eyes as he stopped laughing and grew still.
"Marie?" he asked, his voice suddenly strained. "Oh fuck, don't do this to me, please. I - "
"Yes," I said, catching his eye and smirking. "I'll marry your big, dumb ass but only because you said the magic word."
"Fuck? You're right, that is a magic word. Let's test it out. — Joanna Wylde