“. . . this girl who seemed, increasingly, to be interested in learning to read everything except how human beings talked to one another.”

“...but she wrote out some extra words on a piece of paper so Rain could practice reading. "Is this a magic spell?" the girl asked her."Don't let me get sappy on you, but when you get right down to it, every collection of letters is a magic spell, even if it is a moronic proclamation by the Emperor.  Words have their impact, girl.  Mind your manners.  I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing."-Out of Oz”

“When you get right down to it, every collection of letters is a magic spell, even it it's a moronic proclamation ... Words have their impact, girl. Mind your manners. I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.”

“The circularity of influence was like a trail of dominoes falling in four dimensions. Each time one slapped another and fell to the ground, from a different vantage point it appeared knocked upright, ready to be slapped and fall again. Everything was not merely relative, it was--how to put it? --relevant. Representational. Revealing. Referential and reverential both.”

“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.”

“How easily Neverland is corrupted into the deserted island of Lord of the Flies. How quickly Tinkerbell regresses to being one of the flies pestering the gouged eye sockets of the pig that the lost boys butcher.”

“I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.”