96 Quotes by Chloe Benjamin

From control,” he says, “comes freedom. From restraint comes flexibility. From the trunk” – he puts one hand to his core, then gestures, with his free hand, to his raised leg – “come the branches.

God should not be designed based on personal preference, like a custom pair of gloves. He should not be a product of human longing, which is powerful enough to pull a deity from thin air.

The point is not to negate reality but to peel back its scrim, revealing reality’s peculiarities and contradictions. The very best magic tricks, the kind Klara wants to perform, do not subtract from reality. They add.

Identity is as absurd and contradictory, I think - and certainly as mutable - as the human brain.

I've always been fascinated by dreams - they seem like such intriguing evidence of the brain's obsession with narrative as a form of sense-making. But because dreaming is an unconscious process, we have little control over the stories we tell, so they can be fraught with anxiety, vulnerability, and exposure.

Sometimes, we writers find the perfect research material. I can't overstate how how precious that feels - it's as though you're having an intimate conversation with someone who has the key to unlock your project.

I am somebody who has always struggled with uncertainty. And, of course, uncertainty is so core to life. I seek out knowledge to help me deal with that. But I'm also aware that knowledge can be really a double-edged sword.

Magic is still a very white-male-dominated field.

My favorite writer is Alice Munro. It's simply amazing how well she captures entire lifetimes in a single short story.