Isobelle Carmody

“It is not foolish to ask a question of the world. We of Vlar-rei make songs or our questions. It is only foolish to want answers.”

“We were passing the city cemetery. Adjoining it was a field occupied only by a couple of amiable and moth-eaten horses, and a grey tower. I asked what the tower was for. My grandfather answered that it held a giant’s arm.”

“Here's the thing. I hate kids. Always have.I mean, I know the job of the race, biologically speaking, is to achieve immortality through reproduction, but the idea of getting impregnated and blowing up like a balloon as I serve as a carrier and service unit for this other person who will eventually burst out of me in the most terrifying way imaginable, then carry on using me one way or another for the rest of my life, is right up there with throwing myself off the top of a twenty-story building. If I have a biological clock, it is digital and does not tick.”

“Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.”

“Long fiction is wonderful and you can lose yourself in it as a reader and as a writer, but short stories don't allow the same kind of immersion. Often the best stories hold you back and make you witness them. This may be one of the reasons some people reject the form. That and the fact that they are harder work to read. A story will not let you get comfortable and settle in. It is like a stool that is so small that you must always be aware of sitting.”

“The short story form allows evocation, suggestion, implication. Its potency often lies in what it does not say.”

“It is interesting that the worst retellings of traditional fairy tales are those that heavy-handedly take the step of making a moral point.”

“The very shape of our dreams defines us. We learn about the world and try out our thoughts and visions in them. Our dreams goad us and drive us and summon and sustain us and when we are old they comfort us. Magic is a kind of dream, and love is a dream, and hope is a dream. Without our dreams, there is no sweetness, no purpose to life.”

“Sometimes I am afraid for people like you who have to know things. Your kind will dig and hunt and worry at it until one day you will find what is hidden, waiting for you.”

“‎It is better to pursue a hopeless hope than to give in to black despair.”

“If human lives be,for their very brevity, sweet,then beast lives are sweeter still...”

“The worst predijudice is unknowing. We think we treat others as equals, but, in our deepest heart, we regard ourselves as superior. In part, this is because we are, in ways, powerful. But that does not make the race of humans (funanga) better than that of the dog or equine.”

“Life has always been a matter of putting one's feet down carefully”

“Only humans think death is evil. But it is nature. Evil exist's only in life. There is much good and evil alloted to each life.”

“Impatience is not the least of your faults, Malik, it is a kind of greed and someday it may see you undone.”

“You are born with the yearning arrow, my Glynna, though you are not yet fully aware of it. It is not a happy thing to possess, for nothing on earth - no goal, no person how ever beloved - will answer it. It points to the sky and to the heavens and the stars and when it cannot reach them, it must fall back to pierce your heart.”

“Mama, don't take him. We need him,' Jack whispered. 'Please. He will not forget you if you let him stay with us. He will love you for ever and every time he laughs, he will remember how you once laughed...”

“If she is afraid of mirrors she is afraid of herself.”

“Oh yes. It's open all right, but not many people come in here to look at me now so there's no point in selling tickets. No one is interested in a man who professes to be a monster. They'll give me notice very soon. I started out being a great attraction, but people soon understood that what fascinated them about me was no more than the reflection of their own deformities. All I do is how them what is inside themselves,' He added mournfully.”

“She's forgetting,' Ellen said to Jack, plumping herself down on a chair. 'All of her life is leaking out of her. Soon there will be nothing left.”

“That was what happened to laughter when you caged it. It became unbearably sad. It was worse than crying.”

“Alice's eyes fell to the bundle she carried. But she only said, 'People from the other side of the mirror want to know who and where and why and what is the name. They have to know everything. They are always gnawing at things and at one another.''It's good to want to know things,' Jack said defensively.'It is? What happens when there is no answer?' she sneered. 'Wanting-to-know is always biting at you. Biting and itching. You want to much. Go back to your own world. You don't belong here”

“Don't you understand that wanting does not belong here, because that is what wounds, and there is never an end to it.”

“Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.”

“You must not let me out,' it warned him gently, as it saw his eyes rest on the lock.'If you release me now that I know my nature, I could not help but unmake the enchantment of the mirrors. You see, they are tame now and they show only what people want and need to see in them. The wildness of them is bound up in my form, though I did not know it for a long time. If I were uncaged, I could not help but tear at the enchantment until I was unnamed. Then I would fly into all of the mirrors and windows and into shining footpaths after rain. The mirrors would become wild and they would be absolutely, utterly truthful. Everything would be seen for what it truly was. My laughter would greet every lie and every pretense. It would rumble like a volcano under the smooth surface of everything. You can imagine the chaos it would cause here, for those who dwell in the greylands do so because the mirrors are tamed. If I were free, people would come to be afraid of them. They would cease to believe in their reflections and eventually they would no longer believe in themselves. No, laughter must remain caged here.”

“I heard you laughing,' Jack said. He wanted to say something about the quality of that terrible laughter, but he did not know how to begin. So he said, ' I've never heard anyone laugh like you do.”

“Did you bite someone?' Jack enquired.'I laughed at people, which is much worse. My laughter has sharper teeth than any dog. It tears people apart who wish to be taken seriously, but I could not help myself. There were many complaints and finally a man in a brown suit came and looked at me. He was very important and not used to being laughed at, but I could see he had dandruff on his collar, and there was a spot of his breakfast egg on his lapel. You should have seen him - so puffed up and proud of himself. I couldn't help but laugh and that made people see him as I did, and so they laughed too. All of a sudden everyone realised that for all his status in official matters, he was a man who lived alone and was loveless.”

“The mirror had broken into millions of pieces and the wind blew them all over the world. If a person got a speck in their eye, the person would only see the ugly side of things from then on, but if a piece got in their blood and it reached their heart, it would freeze into a solid block of ice and they couldn't feel anything anymore”

“My heart belongs to you,' He promised.'Would you have loved me when I was a girl?''I have always loved you. Even before I met you I loved the idea of you.”

“What's your name?''Names!' she sniffed, rolling her eyes. 'People always want names, don't they? They're mad about naming. I will let the moment name me.' she eyed Jack expectantly.'You want me to name you?' he asked.'People from the other side are very dull,' she sighed.'Give yourself a name for me. I don't need naming for myself, do I?”

“Never trust a mirror,' his mother had told him. 'They never tell the truth unless you make them.”

“Cracks especially. You have to be careful of the cracks.. Sometimes they are disguised as something else. A doorway, or a smile or even a winking eye. And if you fall through them, you never know were you will end up.”

“The deepest wounds aren't the ones we get from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.”

“Sometimes success demands a certain refined insanity.”

“Maruman does not loll.”