A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.

He missed you like a fish in a bowl misses the open sea.

Metamorphosis is the most profound of all acts.

That's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you'd have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.

Do you think I am a fool, Masha? All this time, and you speak to me as though I were a flighty pinprick of a girl. I am a magician! Did you never think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? I am a student of their lore, and it is arcane and hermetic beyond the dreams of alchemists. Did you never wonder why I gave you so many pots, so many creams, so much perfume?

I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.

A labyrinth, when it is big enough, is just the world.