If I had a choice, if I had understood earlier that the reason my days were all the same was because I wanted them like that, perhaps.

Mari remembered what she had read in the young girl's eyes the moment she had come into the refectory: fear. Fear. Veronika might feel insecurity, shyness, shame, constraint, but why fear? That was only justifiable when confronted by a real threat: ferocious animals, armed attackers, earthquakes, but not a group of people gathered together in a refectory. But human beings are like that,' she thought. 'We've replaced nearly all our emotions with fear.

The music could even penetrate his remote world, more distant than the moon itself; it could even perform miracles.

Life moves very fast. It rushes us from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.

I don't choose. Normally it's the book that chooses me.

Break the glass, please, and free us from all these damned rules, from needing to find an explanation for everything, from doing only what others approve of.

Start using your wings; they need some exercise.