“Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?— Riley Poole”

“I was part of your train but my railroad car was disconnected andswitched at the track, and now my friends and I are on a separate journeylearning how not to rock the lifeboat, sending out a patient S.O.S to you forhelp. I reach out with love, possibly one of a dying breed, the old survival of the fittest theory, or perhaps I am throwing you a lifeline from my Rectangular Bubble.”

“She didn't want to encourage me by asking questions. She didn't want me to go deeper into that other world. She worried she would lose her Matilda to Victorian England.”

“I do not know what you are supposed to do with memories likes these. It feels wrong to want to forget. Perhaps this is why we write these things down, so we can move on.”

“I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first. (Riley to her sister Alice about Paul)”

“Riley was quiet for a minute. She gathered her blanket all around her. "Paul always loved you, Alice. He knows I know that. I know he loves me, too. But it's different."Alice opened her mouth, but nothing came out at first. "He loved me once. But I think that part is over," she said slowly."No, it's not. It hasn't even begun." Riley took Alice's bare foot in her hand and squeezed it. "I told him, though, that he better be good to you. When you came along, I said I'd share you, but I told him to remember that you're my sister. I loved you first."”

“A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin's face. 'There are those,' he said gently, 'who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.”