I find I think of myself not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to reach the circus. To visit the circus again, if only in their minds, when they are unable to attend it physically. I relay it through printed words on crumpled newsprint, words that they can read again and again, returning to the circus whenever they wish, regardless of time of day or physical location. Transporting them at will. When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn't it? p.369

Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon . . . is not the dragon the hero of his own story?

I do not like sitting idly by when something clearly isn't right. I feel... not trapped but something like it, and I don't know what to about.

What happened?" Bailey asks. "That is somewhat difficult to explain," Tsukiko answers. "It is a long and complicated story." "And you're not going to tell me, are you?" She tilts her head a bit ... "No, I am not," she says. "Great," Bailey mutters under his breath... "The bonfire exploded? How?" "Remember when I said it was difficult to explain? That has not changed.

Why haven’t you asked me how I do my tricks?” Celia asks, once they have reached the point where she is certain he is not simply being polite about the matter. “Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better remain in the dark.

“Nothing's impossible,” Poppet responds. She smiles at him and jumps, her red hair trailing out behind her as she falls.

The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on your fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it’s still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now.