Desperate? So what? I'm desperate, too!" Fenoglio snapped at her. "My story is foundering in misfortune, and these hands here," he said holding them out to her, "don't want to write anymore! I'm afraid of words Meggie! 'Once they were like honey, now they're poison, pure poison! But what is a writer who doesn't love words anymore? What have I come to? This story is devouring me, crushing me, and I'm it's creator!

Didn't books say that too: that there is always price to pay for happiness?

-You forgot something important! -What? -It's under my sweater! -WHAT?! -Me!

Why did death make life taste so much sweeter? Why could the heart love only what it could also lose?

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

But after all, the villains are the salt in the soup of a story.

And there stood Basta with his foot already on another dead body, smiling. Why not? He had hit his target, and it was the target he had been aiming for all along: Dustfinger’s heart, his stupid heart. It broke in two as he held Farid in his arms, it simply broke in two, although he had taken such good care of it all these years.