The unicorn halted in her slow, desperate round of the cage, realizing for the first time that the magician understood her speech. He smiled, and she saw that his face was frighteningly young for a grown man-untraveled by time, unvisited by grief or wisdom. "I know you," he said.

I am a king's daughter, And if I cared to care, The moon that has no mistress Would flutter in my hair. No one dares to cherish What I choose to crave. Never have I hungered, For that I did not have I am a kings daughter, And I grow old within The prison of my person, The shackles of my skin. And I would run away And beg from door to door, Just to see your shadow Once, and never more.

Wisdom is finding joy in bewilderment

If a man loved me, I would have talked myself into loving him, and I would have loved him very deeply after a while.

Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name.

I always say perseverance is nine-tenths of any art — not that it's much help to be nine-tenths an artist, of course.

My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known.