“The world is a chessboard, Madam, on which we play out our ploys and follies. You are the Queen, of course. Your moves are the strongest. For myself, I claim only to be a knight, advancing in a crooked progress. Do we move ourselves, do you think, or does a great gloved hand place on our squares”

“We are chained hand and foot by protocol, enslaved to a static, empty world where men and women can’t read, where the scientific advances of the ages are the preserve of the rich, where artists and poets are doomed to endless repetitions and sterile reworking of past masterpieces. Nothing is new. New does not exist. Nothing changes, nothing grows, evolves, develops. Time has stopped. Progress is forbidden”

“When you draw, you copy the world don't you? You remake it on paper, but it isn't the same. It's yours. No one else could have created it just like that. When I make poems, I use the words we all use, but the order and the sound create a new power. This wood is someone's creation. We stumble through it's tendrils, as if we're crawling through the synapses of his mind.”

“She turned to Vetch and he caught her hands as they reached out for him. "I wanted power, I always wanted it, but it's stronger than I am! I can't control the Unworld, Vetch, or the real world either. I can't make it do what I want! The forest is too strong." Vetch crouched, his narrow face close to hers. "You will, Chloe. I promise you." He glanced at Mac. "Ask him. God gives no one a gift he cannot master. Right, Priest?”

“He sang his last song. And the words of that have never been written down. But it was sweet and of great beauty, and those that heard it were changed utterly.Some say it was the song that moves the stars.”

“Despair is deep. An abyss that swallows dreams. A wall at the world's end. Behind it I await death. Because all our work has come to this.”

“Because sometime, somehow, the god spoke your name. You took a step too far and here you are. None of us can ever go back. Even if we wanted to.”