"Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be so easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder--if not impossible--to lose."

"When I meet people, I no longer say 'Hi, I'm Derek Landy, pleased to meet you.' Now I say 'Hi, I'm number one bestselling author Derek Landy. Worship me."

"[T]he success of democracy depends, in the end, on the reliability of the judgments we citizens make, and hence upon our capacity and determination to weigh arguments and evidence rationally."

"The journey towards success is more like a traveller lost in a desert, desperate to find an oasis, desperate to quench his thirst. But it is not about how grave the thirst is but about how long he chooses to walk thirsty."

"If you live in a ghetto and really want not to just change your life and your family's life but change your ghetto's life, make your ghetto a good neighbourhood, learn science; try to be like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs."