“It's easy to believe in magic when you're young. Anything you couldn't explain was magic then. It didn't matter if it was science or a fairy tale. Electricity and elves were both infinitely mysterious and equally possible - elves probably more so.”

“When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.”

“If you don't believe it's elves, that's your problem. I know it's elves.”

“The truth is more magical - in the best and most exciting sense of the word - than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic of reality.”

“Remember that stories are more than just words, more than fairy tales. They are magic.”

“There are little fairies outside,” I breathed, forcing out the words through quick breaths. His brows drew together in a way that wasn’t scary but, instead, surprised and he replied, “Those aren’t fairies, wife, those are elves.” Elves? Elves.”