“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.”

“That’s where proper stories begin, don’t they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong?”

“It's only a story, you say. So it is, and the rest of life with it - creation story, love story, horror, crime, the strange story of you and I. The alphabet of my DNA shapes certain words, but the story is not told. I have to tell it myself. What is it that I have to tell myself again and again? That there is always a new beginning, a different end. I can change the story. I am the story. Begin.”

“Saying my story makes me want to change it, make it sound pretty the way I do with the stories I tell the workers. I'd like it to have a beginning as grand as a ball and an ending in a whisper, like a mother tucking in a child for sleep.”

“All of these lines across my faceTell you the story of who I amSo many stories of where I've beenAnd how I got to where I amBut these stories don't mean anythingWhen you've got no one to tell them toIt's true, I was made for youI climbed across the mountaintopsTravel across the ocean blueI cross over lines and I broke all the rulesAnd baby I broke them all for youOh because even when I was flat brokeYou made me feel like a million bucksYou do, I was made for youYou see the smile that's on my mouthIt's hiding the words that don't come outAll of the friends who think that I'm blessedThey don't know my head's a messNo they don't know who I really amAnd they don't know what I've been throughLike you do, and I was made for youAll of these lines across my faceTell you the story of who I amSo many stories of where I've beenAnd how I got to where I amOh but these stories don't mean anythingWhen you've got no one to tell them toIt's true, I was made for youOh yeah, and it's true that I was made for you”

“I have my own story, and I love my story, but I know I can't tell it alone, not now. Because stories have centers, but they don't have edges. No boundaries.”