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.

Sometimes Dustfinger thought Basta's constant fear of curses and sudden disaster probably arose from his terror of the darkness within himself, which made him assume that the rest of the world must be exactly the same.

Down there the nights are bright and nobody believes in the Devil.

Weren’t all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!

Children, they're the same everywhere. Greedy little creatures but the best listeners in the world - any world. The very best of all.

The sea always filled her with longing, though for what she was never sure.

You know what they say: When people start burning books they'll soon burn human beings.