Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.

Hope. Nothing is more intoxicating.

Dustfinger still clearly remembered the feeling of being in love for the first time. How vulnerable his heart had suddenly been! Such a trembling, quivering thing, happy and miserably unhappy at once.

A reader doesn't really see the characters in a story; he feels them.

She is a real bookworm. I think she lives on print. Her whole house is full of books - looks as if she likes them better than human company.

Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.

Power. Intoxicating. Like a fine wine.