Indeed, she often wondered if she were dead, or dying from the inside out, and that was the root of her calm, the reason she could surrender her character.

Wishing is the beginning of imagination. They practice wishing when they are young things, and then -when they have grown - they have a developed imagination. Which can do some harm - greed, that kind of thing - but more often does them some good. They can imagine that things might be different. Might be other than they seem. Could be better.

In summer moonlight, she was dangerously, inebriatingly magnified.

She is no longer I, she is too long ago, she is only she.

Was it an accident that I saw Fiyero, I wondered, looking at the manager with new eyes, or is it just that world unwraps itself to you again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew?

Forgive us our trespasses," says Margarethe, "and get out of our way.

If one could drown in the grass, thought Elphie, that might be the best way to die.