“believe me. Sometimes when life looks to be at its grimmest, there's a light hidden at the heart of things.Clive Barker, Abarat”

“The night belongs to beasts of prey, and always has. It's easy to forget that when you're indoors, protected by light and solid walls.”

“Blue as the evening sky, blue as cranesbill flowers, blue as the lips of drowned men and the heart of a blaze burning with too hot a flame. Yes, sometimes it was hot in this world, too. Hot and cold, light and dark, terrible and beautiful, it was everything all at once. It wasn't true that you felt nothing in the land of Death. You felt and heard and smelled and saw, but your heart remained strangely calm, as if it were resting before the dance began again.Peace. Was that the word?”

“It's the same in real life: Notorious murderers get off scot-free and live happily all their lives, while good people die - sometimes the very best people. That's the way of the world.”

“The fairy had flown over to the window and was peering curiously out at the alley. "Forget it. Stay here," said Dustfinger. "Please. Believe me, it's no place for you out there." She looked at him quizzically, then folded her wings and knelt on the windowsill. And there she stayed, as if she coudln't decide between the hot room and the strange freedom to be found outside.”

“They're all cruel,' he said. 'The world I come from, the world you come from, and this one, too. Maybe the people don't see the cruelty in your world right away, it's better hidden, but it's there all the same.”

“Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things half as well as books do.”