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

Where is your sense of patriotism?" I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr. Clent. I don't use 'em much in case they get scratched.

My child, you have a flawed grasp of the nature of myth-making. I am a poet and storyteller, a creator of ballads and sagas. Pray do not confuse the exercise of the imagination with mere mendacity. I am a master of the mysteries of words, their meanings and music and mellifluous magic.

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.

The world is like a broken wrist that healed the wrong way, and will never be the same again.

Mosca said nothing. The word ‘damsel’ rankled with her. She suddenly thought of the clawed girl from the night before, jumping the filch on an icy street. Much the same age and build as Beamabeth, and far more beleaguered. What made a girl a ‘damsel in distress’? Were they not allowed claws? Mosca had a hunch that if all damsels had claws they would spend a lot less time ‘in distress’.

I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be.