My dear Elinor, you were obviously born into the wrong story,” said Dustfinger at last.

The night belongs to beasts of prey, and always has. It's easy to forget that when you're indoors, protected by light and solid walls.

When you open a book it's like going to the theater first you see the curtain then it is pulled aside and the show begins.

Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?

Women were different, no doubt about it. Men broke so much more quickly. Grief didn't break women. Instead it wore them down, it hollowed them out very slowly.

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!

Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?