“Why could she remember nothing but stories of frightened people when Capricorn looked at her? She usually found it so easy to escape somewhere else, to get right inside the minds of people and animals who existed only on paper, so why not now? Because she was afraid. "Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.”

“What a coward she was after all! She tried to think of some hero out of one of her books,someone whose skin she could slip into, to make her feel stronger, bigger, braver. Why couldshe remember nothing but stories of frightened people when Capricorn looked at her? Sheusually found it so easy to escape somewhere else, to get right inside the minds of people andanimals who existed only on paper, so why not now? Because she was afraid. "Because fear killseverything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.”

“Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.”

“Yes, Mo would come. Meggie could think of nothing else as Fenoglio led her away with him, his arm around her as if he could really protect her from Capricorn and Basta and all the others. But he couldn't. Would Mo be able to protect her? Of course not. He mustn't come, she thought. Please. Perhaps he won't be able to find his way in again! He mustn't come. Yet there was nothing she wanted more, nothing in the whole wide world.”

“The heart was a weak, changeable thing, bent on nothing but love, and there could be no more fatal mistake than to make it your master. Reason must be in charge. It comforted you for the heart's foolishness, it sang mocking songs about love, derided it as a whim of nature, transient as flowers. So why did she still keep following her heart?”

“Go back and rid the word of that book. Fill it with words before spring comes, or winter will never end for you. And I will take not only your life for the Adderhead's but your daughter's, too, because she helped you bind the book. Do you undersand, Bluejay"Why two?" asked Mo hoarsely. "How can you ask for two lives in return for one?”

“Memories, so sweet and bitter.. they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost?”