"Things we are accustomed to regard as myth or fairy story are very much present in people’s lives. Nice people behave like wicked stepmothers. Every day."

“If nothing happened, then there's nothing to remember," she told herself, trying to sound philosophical. "Of course there's nowhere to start.”

“Mitt did not quite forget his perfect land. He remembered it, though a little fuzzily, next time the wind dropped, but he did not set off to look for it again. It was plain to him that soldiers only brought you back again if you went. It made him sad. When an inkling of it came to him in silence, or in scents, or, later, if the wind hummed a certain note, or a storm came shouting in from the sea and he caught the same note in the midst of its noise, he thought of his lost perfect place and felt for a moment as if his heart would break.”

“If you stood up and told the truth in the wrong way, it was not true any longer, though it might be as powerful as ever.”

“Unprintable things!" I said - only I didn't say that. I really said them.”

“The only good Dorig is a dead Dorig.”

“She was one of those who could talk and talk and talk. Gair listened to her harsh voice - "Just like a duck," Ayna described it - and hoped she would lose the argument. But Adara once said Kasta had never lost an argument in her life. She just talked everyone insensible.”