“It’d be a poor kind of world where there was just one explanation for things. ---Rhiow”

“There's no way that can be the river," Rhiow said."Rhi, the ceiling of Grand Central--" Saash said."It's backward," Rhiow snapped, "thank you very much, I know all about it.""Is it?" Saash said. "Which direction are you coming at it from?"Rhiow closed her mouth and thought about that.”

“You do have the idea of being ‘just good friends?’” He gave her a sideways look. “For so high and honorable an estate,” Roshaun said, “ ‘just’ seems a poor modifier to choose.”

“In Life’s name and for Life’s sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so—till Universe’s end. I will look always toward the Heart of Time, where all times are one, where all our sundered worlds lie whole, as they were meant to be.”

“The city breathing, burning, living the life thy had preserved. Ten million lives and more. If something should happen to all that life- how terrible! Nita gulped for control as she remembered Fred's word of just this morning, an eternity ago. And this was what being a wizard was about. Keeping terrible things from happening, even when it hurts. Not just power, or control of what ordinary people couldn't control, or delight in being able to make strange things happen. Those were the side effects- not the reason, the purpose.”

“Footsteps in the snowsuggest where you have been,point to where you were going:but when they suddenly vanish,never dismiss the possibilityof flight...”

“Where's my bed?!" Dairine shrieked."It's on Pluto," Nita said. "On the winter side, somewhere nice and dark and quiet, where you won't find it if you look all day-which you're not going to have time to do, becaus you'll be in school.”