The world is not made of countries and outsiders. We are all just humans, and most of us fools and all of us longing for more than we have, to know m….

It's saying no. That's your first hint that something's alive. It says no. That's how you know a baby is starting to turn into a person. They run aro….

Wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always cha….

Her father’s shadow looked sadly down at her. “You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war ei….

Well, very splendid and very frightening. But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all..

Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, th….

In his own country, Death can be kind..

Marya Morevna, we are better at this than you are. We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts. Never have your folk delighted us more, been….

Monsters almost always are culture's way of working out their fears..

Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb..

If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted….

And it's the wonders I'm after, even if I have to bleed for them..

September could see it. She did not know what is was she saw. That is the disadvantage of being a heroine, rather than a narrator. She knew only that….

When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it IS brighter and lovelier; it just means that sweet, kindly home ….

How much better if life were more like books, if life lied a little more, and gave up its stubborn and boring adherence to the way things can be, and….

Oh, September! It is so soon for you to lose your friends to good work and strange loves and high ambitions. The sadness of that is too grown-up for ….

You should always listen to minotaurs. Anybody with four stomachs has to have a firm grip on reality..

Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were goo….

Snow is the beginning and the end of everything..

True names,” said September wonderingly. “These are all true names. Like, when your parents call you to dinner and you don’t come and they call again….

So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and t….