It was hopeless. She was flawless. She was a sunbeam. Mosca gave up and got on with hating her.

If you want someone to tell you what to think..." "You will never be short of people willing to do so.

No." Mosca bit her lip and shook her head firmly. Books no longer seemed quite enough. I don’t want a happy ending, I want more story.

Making a wish is like saying, 'I can't deal with anything, I give up, somebody bigger come along and solve it all instead.

In Mosca’s experience, a ‘long story’ was always a short story someone did not want to tell.

That," he whispered, "is unthinkable." In Mosca’s experience, such statements generally meant that a thing was perfectly thinkable, but that the speaker did not want to think it.

Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.