“...by her family circle. That was my phrase, one that could include me by some stretch of the imagination; 'circle' sounded too symmetrical, but it would have to do.”

“There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or too hard to explain. After all, after years and travels my secrets are all I have left to chew on in the night.”

“A lady lion-tamer put her head in a lion's mouth last week, and he bit it off. If a lion attempted to put his head in my mouth I expect I would do the same.”

“Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.”

“It's weird to have something that's mine-not-Ma's. Everything else is both of ours. I guess my body is mine and the ideas that happen in my head. But my cells are made out of her cells so I'm kind of hers.”

“It's all real in Outside, everything there is, because I saw an airplane in the blue between the clouds. Ma and me can't go there because we don't know the secret code, but it's real all the same.Before I didn't know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it.”

“I was beautiful, or so my father told me. My oval mirror showed me a face with nothing written on it. I had suitors aplenty but wanted none of them: their doggish devotion seemed too easily won. I had an appetite for magic, even then. I wanted something improbably and perfect as a red rose just opening.”