She did not want to read this book from start to finish, or rather, she thought perhaps it did not want her to. Instead she practiced the art of bibliomancy, trusting the book to show her what it wanted her to know.

This is what comes of having a heart, even a very small and young one. It causes no end of trouble, and that’s the truth.

Slowly, without taking his eyes from hers, the man in the black coat knelt before her. ”I have come for the girl in the window,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears

Just tell yourself a story that'll satisfy you and pretend he told it.

Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles—and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut.

Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re grown, and the face they’ve earned when they’re old. But when you live as long as I have, you get many more. I look nothing like I did when I was a wee thing of thirteen. You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.

Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.