Those who came before us, with their family names and genetic legacies, with their physical peculiarities, whether it be albino skin or brown eyes – none of this mattered. Family was who we loved and who we protected. Family was the tribe we created here and now.

I think angels definitely offer all the imaginative possibilities that vampires do, and I think they’ve actually been popular in Western culture for longer than vampires have been. I hope they become a part of the culture again in a new way.

At once I understood how very different the lives of the victorious were from the lives of the conquered.

I always knew I wanted to write really imaginative fiction – fiction that was very different from my real life.

People don’t actually think there is such a thing out there as angel research.

One thing that I don’t ever want to do is write something I don’t love.

Stories of a mythical angel paradise called an Angelopolis are like Peter Pan’s Never Never Land.

I don’t think there are actually any theologians practicing angelology or studying angels anymore, but it’s definitely in a lot of religious literature. It’s still out there, and people are still interested. Even in the more secular way, books about angels are everywhere.

Every once in awhile you find a novel so magical that there is no escaping its spell. The Night Circus is one of these rarities – engrossing, beautifully written and utterly enchanting. If you choose to read just one novel this year, this is it.

If people start pulling away the stereotypes of what angels are instead of these fluffy, teddy-bear kinds of angels, then they’ll see, historically, that they were terrifying in some depictions. In the Bible, from what I remember, often the reaction to angels is one of terror.