Well, the family always was bright, and brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly.

She dreamed of leaving, but she had too little exposure to the world to imagine where to go.

We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out.

No one is exempt from grief.

Starlight and comet tails burned the tips of endless grass below into hammered silver. Like thousands of tapers in the chapel, just blown out but still glowing. If one could drown in the grass...it might be the best way to die.

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.

I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.