“It was hidden inside another book. One Valentine was unlikely to ever open." Magnus smiled crookedly. "Simple Recipes for Housewives. No one can say your mother didn't have a sense of humor.”

“You have a masterpiece inside you, you know. One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.”

“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.”

“One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.”

“Books, for me, are a home. Books don’t make a home--they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.”

“The greatest weapon that one can have is a simple...smile.”