“A poem doesn’t come out and tell you what it has to say. It circles back on itself, eating its own tail and making you guess what it means.”

“I have some questions about betrayal,” I said. “Think about this: A person who calls you his best friend, and says he has dinner plans with you, goes off with a beautiful woman, saying he’ll be back directly, then makes you wait half an hour because he’s kissing the woman in the alley. Is that betrayal?”“Oh, Lord.” Eldric tossed back his wine.”

“He’s harmless, poor thing. That’s what everyone said. It was true, but who cares? Lots of people are harmless, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them.”

“I've confessed to everything and I'd like to be hanged. Now, if you please.I don't mean to be difficult, but I can't bear to tell my story. I can't relive those memories—the touch of the Dead Hand, the smell of eel, the gulp and swallow of the swamp. How can you possibly think me innocent? Don't let my face fool you; it tells the worst lies. A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.I know you believe you're giving me a chance—or, rather, it's the Chime Child giving me the chance. She's desperate, of course, not to hang an innocent girl again, but please believe me: Nothing in my story will absolve me of guilt. It will only prove what I've already told you, which is that I'm wicked. Can't the Chime Child take my word for it?In any event, where does she expect me to begin? The story of a wicked girl has no true beginning. I'd have to begin with the day I was born.If Eldric were to tell the story, he'd likely begin with himself, on the day he arrived in the Swampsea. That's where proper stories begin, don't they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong?But this isn't a proper story, and I'm telling you, I ought to be hanged.”

“I think about the Old Ones, that they have a past but no history. I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it’s not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scrapbooks and tell stories. That that’s how we humans find our way to immortality. This is not a new thought; I’ve had such thoughts before. But I have a new thought now. That that’s how we find our way toward meaning. Meaning. If you’re going to die, you want to find meaning in life. You want to connect the dots.”

“This is what I want. I want people to take care of me. I want them to force comfort upon me. I want the soft-pillow feeling that I associate with memories of being ill when I was younger, soft pillows and fresh linens and satin-edged blankets and hot chocolate. It's not so much the comfort itself as knowing there's someone who wants to take care of you.”

“Guess what it is that turns plants to coal.Pressure.Guess what it is that turns limestone to marble.Pressure.Guess what it is that turns Briony's heart to stone.Pressure.Pressure is uncomfortable, but so are the gallows. Keep your secrets, wolfgirl. Dance your fists with Eldric's, snatch lightning from the gods. Howl at the moon, at the blood-red moon. Let your mouth be a cavern of stars.”