“The world should not be organized to require heroines, and when one is required but fails to appear, we should not judge.”

“Adelaide believes that all children should have enough grown-ups around who love them so that one can tell them to fight, one can tell them not to, and one can tell them not to worry so much.”

“Materia had been just six when they docked in Sydney Harbour and her father said, 'Look. This is the New World. Anything is possible here.' She's been too young to realize that he was talking to her brother.”

“Afterwards, in bed with a book, the spell of television feels remote compared to the journey into the page. To be in a book. To slip into the crease where two pages meet, to live in the place where your eyes alight upon the words to ignite a world of smoke and peril, colour and serene delight. That is a journey no one can end with the change of a channel. Enduring magic.”

“Having experienced her own disappearance, she is conscious of how important it is for people to be seen, so when she looks at them --even the blind one--she also looks for them, just in case they too have got lost and need finding.”

“They are so young, they forget that the world is not as in love with them as they are.”

“The thief you must fear the most is not the one who steals mere things.”