Madrigal sniffed herself. "I'm almost sure I don't smell." "Maybe not, but between shining cleanliness and not smelling, there is a vast gray area.

Cats and ghosts both partook of the saucers of milk and that was okay. They consumed different parts of it: the cats its substance, the ghosts its essence, and none went to waste.

Beauty,’ Brimstone had scoffed once. ‘Humans are fools for it. As helpless as moths who hurl themselves at fire.

James often wondered at the chain of flukes it must have taken to bring him through with his own life and limbs intact. Once he might have believed it to be the work of Providence but it seemed to him now that to thank God for his life would be to suggest God had shrugged off all the others flicked them away like cigarette butts by the thousands and that seemed like abominable conceit. James Dorsey took no credit for being alive. His higher power these days was Chance.

You almost hold up your piece of paper and say, ‘The girl I like just gave me a treasure map to herself.’ But you don’t. You just don’t.

The main thing I've learned is that we all have to learn to work with - and appreciate - the brain we've been given, and not waste time wishing things were easier.

Perhaps Fate laid out your life for you like a dress on a bed, and you could either wear it or go naked.