She's forgetting,' Ellen said to Jack, plumping herself down on a chair. 'All of her life is leaking out of her. Soon there will be nothing left.

Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.

My heart belongs to you,' He promised. 'Would you have loved me when I was a girl?' 'I have always loved you. Even before I met you I loved the idea of you.

Life has always been a matter of putting one's feet down carefully

Maruman does not loll.

You are born with the yearning arrow, my Glynna, though you are not yet fully aware of it. It is not a happy thing to possess, for nothing on earth - no goal, no person how ever beloved - will answer it. It points to the sky and to the heavens and the stars and when it cannot reach them, it must fall back to pierce your heart.

Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.