“Humans were so stupid. They had something so precious, and they barely safeguarded it at all. They threw away their lives for money, for packets of powder, for a stranger's charming smile.”

“There was a man once who said that mothers carry the key of our souls with them all our lives. But you threw mine away”

“Hodge had given up a long time ago trying to live a better life or a different one;all he wanted was not to be afraid, and so he was afraid all the time”

“She had never imagined she had the power to make someone else so happy. And not a magical power, either--a purely human one.”

“It was stupid to hope, she knew. But sometimes hope was all you had.”

“Tessa exhaled. She hadn't realized that she had been holding her breath until that moment. Will must have heard her, for he raised his head and his gaze met hers across the clearing. Something in it made her look away. Agony stripped so raw was not meant for her eyes.”

“Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn't realize was precious until you lost it.”