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In my research, what I found most interesting was how common and ordinary magic was to people in the past.

Magic provides a way of still having room for possibilities, an unlimited sense of what the world offers. Magic is always there when science is found wanting.

And where does magic come from? I think that magic's in the learning.

I like to say magic is the world's second oldest profession, a mystical and often awe-inspiring spectacle that, throughout the ages, has blended superstition, trickery and religion.

I think every fantasy reader secretly believes they know how magic works.

Magic is the mysteries into which not everyone is so lucky, or unlucky, as to be initiated. It can be affected by belief, the whims of the unseen, harsh language. And it is not. Supposed. To make. Sense. In fact, I think it's coolest when it doesn't.

I think that magic, at its root, is a very abstract notion. There's no real, approved definition. And, in that sense, it's like love; you can only see magic by the effect it has on people.

Sometimes, magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.

Indubitably, magic is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgment and practice than in any other branch of physics.

Magic is something that happens that appears to be impossible. What I call 'illusion magic' uses laws of science and nature that are already known. Real magic uses laws that haven't yet been discovered.