Every time I do what you say I tumble a bit farther down this well of darkness, an' this here is a drop too deep an' too dark for me. I have to stop falling while I can still see a bit of the sky.

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

I'm never telling the truth again! It gets you hanged and locked out and starved and froze and hated . . .

Well, you will have to do. If you had died along with your mother, I would have taught the cat to read.

You, sir, are a romantic, and I'm afraid the condition is incurable. -Eponymous Clent

Everybody knew that books were dangerous. Read the wrong book, it was said, and the words crawled around your brain on black legs and drove you mad, wicked mad.

Desperation is a millstone. It wears away at the very soul, grinding away pity, kindness, humanity and courage. But sometimes it whets the mind to a sharpened point and creates moments of true brilliance. And standing there, nose tickled by the dusty hide of the stuffed deer head, such a moment visited Mosca Mye.