“I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be.”

“Making a wish is like saying, 'I can't deal with anything, I give up, somebody bigger come along and solve it all instead.”

“Little god, you see the world through such black eyes." "Got no choice. My father give ’em to me.”

“You see, I had been exploring the tunnels of my own mind, and my greatest idea had come to me.""What was it?" Neverfell was fascinated. "I do not know," the Kleptomancer answered, perfectly phlegmatically. "But I am sure I will let myself know when the time is right. You see, anybody who chases a plan, however secretively and indirectly, gives themselves away. After a while you can predict them, work out what they want. So I decided the only way to avoid this was not to know what the plan was, or even the parts of the plan, until I needed them. Nobody could predict me, because I could not predict myself. Nobody could work out what I wanted, because I did not know what I wanted.”

“I should never have told you . . . I don’t know what happened to me. I just . . . wanted to talk to somebody." "And if you hadn’t you’d still be going crazy with what you know, and I’d be going crazy with what I didn’t know, and both of us would be alone. Right now, I’m upset but I’m . . ." Neverfell hesitated, like one stretching a limb they think might be broken. "I’m all right. I think I’m more all right than I have been for ages. Great big holes of unknown are the worst thing. Before this, I didn’t know anything was wrong but I didn’t not know, if you see what I mean. You can go mad like that. And if my face is spoilt now, once and for all, then it means I don’t have to worry about it any more.”

“What a world this is, he thought. Children put us to shame with their pluck, and are shot in the back for it.”

“Every time I do what you say I tumble a bit farther down this well of darkness, an' this here is a drop too deep an' too dark for me. I have to stop falling while I can still see a bit of the sky.”