I believe that the world isn't always what we can see...I believe there are secrets in the woods. And I believe that goodness wins out...So, if someone's changed overnight - by witch curse or poison apple or were-turtle - you have to show them what's good. You show them love. That works a surprising amount of the time.

In woods where the woodsmen told lies, maybe it was the wolves who told the truth.

A boy got a splinter in his eye, and his heart turned cold. Only two people noticed. One was a witch, and she took him for her own. The other was his best friend. And she went after him in ill-considered shoes, brave and completely unprepared.

The halls were empty. Charlotte had missed the first bell and would be late, again. Her homeroom teacher would ask her for an excuse and she would say, 'Overwhelming feeling of dread.' That was going to go over nicely.

This is what it is to live in the world. You have to give yourself over to the cold, at least a little bit.

Hazel had read enough books to know that a line like this one is the line down which your life breaks in two. And you have to think very carefully about whether you want to cross it, because once you do it’s very hard to get back to the world you left behind. And sometimes you break a barrier that no one knew existed, and then everything you knew before crossing the line is gone. But sometimes you have a friend to rescue. And so you take a deep breath and then step over the line and into the darkness ahead.

People feared snowstorms once. Hazel read about this all the time. Pioneers opened their front doors and saw they'd been entombed in snow overnight. They walked across malevolent swirling whiteness and did not know if they would survive. Nature can destroy us in a blink. We live on only at its pleasure. That was what looking at the witch was like.