How do you invent a religion?” Evie asked. Will looked over the top of his spectacles. “You say, ‘God told me the following,’ and then wait for people to sign up.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.

Discord need not be an impediment. Differences can bring strength.

Gemma~Was he really looking at me that way? Kartik~What way? Gemma~Like a piece of ripe fruit? Katrik~You'd best be on your guard with him.

I'm going to eviscerate you and leave your organs on a pike in the yard as a warning to those who wear large jewelry.

We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic.

I'm floating inside my skin. I could go on floating like this for days. Right now, the real world with its heartbreak and disappointments is just a pulse against the protective membrane we've drunk ourselves into. It's somewhere outside us, waiting." A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 141, by