“Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way.”

“Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.”

“But who could teach daughters how to fly? Parents were by definition earthbound, grub eaters, feet in their own coffins, by dint of being parents.”

“If magic was present, it moved under the skin of the world, beneath the ability of human eyes to catch sight of it.”

“It isn't hard to find evil in this world. Evil is always more easily imagined than good, somehow.”

“It's hard to find evil in this world,' said the Witch. Evil is always more easily imagined than good, somehow.”

“The thing about a mirror is this: The one who stares into it is condemned to consider the world from her own perspective.”