“When Rose takes to screaming, she starts loud, continues loud, and ends loud. Rose has a very good ear and always screams on the same note. I'd tested her before I burnt the library, and our piano along with it.Rose screams on the note B flat.We don't need a piano anymore now that we have a human tuning fork.”

“I don't like my shoes,' said Rose.'I'm wearing my shoes and you don't see me complain.''You only hear a person complain,' said Rose. 'Not see.'How has Rose lived for seventeen years and no one has killed her, not once?”

“I don't know what it is, but I ache for it each day. It's as though I have eyes, but there are colors I cannot see. As though I have ears, but there's a range of notes I cannot hear.”

“Now that’s true poetic irony. I rush into battle to defend the fair name of Rose Larkin, and what does she do but fetch Robert to stop me.”

“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.”

“It’s just as well I switched hands: Witches are thought to be left-handed. Perhaps it’s true. Rose is no witch and she uses her right hand. We are mirror twins, she and I. What’s left for me is right for her; and if I wanted to feel sorry for myself, I might say nothing’s right for me.”

“Despite her cough, Rose was in unusually good spirits. That was irritating. If I’m to trade my life for Rose’s, I’d appreciate her exhibiting a touch of melancholy. Also acceptable would be despair.”