The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)

by Lev Grossman

He was experimenting cautiously with the idea of being happy, dipping an uncertain toe into those intoxicatingly carbonated waters.

he was still in the real world, where bad, bitter things happened for no reason, and people paid for things that weren’t their fault.

I think you’re magicians because you’re unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength.

“Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you.”

Being brave was easy when you would rather die than give up.