“A tangle, you know, is more powerful than a single thread alone.”

“Which all goes to show that it is hard to hide how you feel, when mirrors are out there everywhere, just waiting to pounce.”

“But you don't have to fit in to be okay. Believe me! I am the not-fitting-in world expert. I have not fit in in maybe five different countries so far. I am homelandless. I even make mistakes when I speak Bulgarian. But it's not big deal, not really. It's not the end of the world, right? It's okay.”

“I myself am opaque, for some reason. Their eyes cannot see me. Yes, that's it: The world is autistic with respect to me.”

“Nothing but magic is really like magic, when it comes right down to it.”

“Though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result”

“Now, the world is more than it seems to be. You know this, of course, because you read stories. You understand that there is the surface and then there are all the things that glimmer and shift underneath it. And you know that not everyone believes in those things, that there are people—a great many people—who believe the world cannot be any more than what they can see with their eyes. But we know better.”