Push something in someone’s face, and they will shove it away reflexively. Threaten to snatch it away from them, and sometimes they become convinced that it is what they want.

You’re a peach full of poison, you know that?" Mosca snapped back, but could not quite keep a hint of admiration from her tone.

Sometimes fear made you angry. Perhaps after years anger cooled, like a sword taken from a forge. Perhaps in the end you were left with something very cold and very sharp.

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.

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.

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

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