The Scrivener's Bones (Alcatraz, #2)

by Brandon Sanderson

In fact, on the bad-habit scale, it ranks somewhere between chewing with your mouth open and making quacking noises when your friends are trying to study. (Try that one sometime—it’s really fun.)

I should note here that Bastille’s mother—Draulin—is by no means as stiff and boring a person as she might at first seem. I have it on good authority that once, about ten years ago, she was heard to laugh, though some still claim it was a particularly nasty sneeze. She has also been known to blink occasionally, though only on her lunch break.

You have to remember, however, that this is not fiction, but a real-life account. I can’t help it if all of my friends were too selfish to do the narratively proper thing and get themselves killed off to hike up the tension of my memoirs.

Oh, you didn’t want to hear that? I’m sorry. You’ll simply have to forget that I wrote it. There are several convenient ways to do that. I hear hitting yourself on the head with a blunt object can be very effective. You should try using one of Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy novels. They’re big enough, and goodness knows that’s really the only useful thing to do with them.

“Ah look, the dark lord of evil has come to attack the castle! Annnnd there’s my lunch break. Have fun saving the world on your own, kids!”)

I often wish that the two groups—adults and kids—could find a way to get along better. Some sort of treaty or something. The biggest problem is, the adults have one of the most effective recruitment strategies in the world. Give them enough time, and they’ll turn any kid into one of them.

What did it mean to be called “lord”? I’ll assume you’ve never had the honor, since I doubt any of you happen to be British royalty. (And if by chance you are, then let me say, “Hello, Your Majesty! Welcome to my stupid book. Can I borrow some cash?”)

(How does one scold a Knight of Crystallia some twenty years your senior? “Bad knight”? “Go straight to bed without polishing your sword”?)

“What do you mean?” “Well, they’re undead wraiths, for one thing,” he said, “though it’s not really nice to be prejudiced against people because of their race.” I raised an eyebrow.

She’s not stupid. She simply gets distracted. By, you know, breathing.

Now, it wasn’t just dark down there. It was dark. Dark like I’d been swallowed by a whale, then that whale had been eaten by a bigger whale, then that bigger whale had gotten lost in a deep cave, which had then been thrown into a black hole.

The quickest way I’ve found to feel bad about yourself is to read a self-help book, and the second quickest is to read a depressing literary work intended to make you feel terrible about humanity in general.)

My goal is to write a completely frivolous book, for if I actually say anything important, I run the risk of making people worship or respect me even more.

Once there was a bunny. This bunny had a birthday party. It was the bestest birthday party ever. Because that was the day the bunny got a bazooka.

my favorite of which is known as the Law of Pure Awesomeness. This law simply states that any book I write is awesome. I’m sorry, but it’s a fact. Who am I to argue with science?

Confusion, after all, is the true universal language.