“After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandestine Marriage, they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion they had gained in the World, in so doing, by accepting any proposals of reconciliation that might be offered them by their Fathers – to their farther trial of their noble independence however they never were exposed.”

“They were smart and sophisticated, with an air of independence about them, and so casual about their looks and clothes and manners as to be almost slapdash. I don't know if I realized as soon as I began seeing them that they represented the wave of the future, but I do know I was drawn to them. I shared their restlessness, understood their determination to free themselves of the Victorian shackles of the pre-World War I era and find out for themselves what life was all about.”

“This is a—a proposal of marriage?” he asked me, and there was the very smallest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth, something I had never seen before.“I suppose so,” I said, blushing again. “And, as you see, I’m doing it properly, on my knees.”“This would, however, be a partnership of equals you’re offering, I imagine?”“Undoubtedly.” (448-49)”

“Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.”

“The world couldn't heal as long as human beings were so determined to place gain over virtue, so determined to lead others to ruin down the wrong path.”

“These stories were very old, as old as people, and they had survived because they were very powerful indeed. They were the tales that echoed in the head long after the books that contained them were cast aside. They were both an escape from reality and an alternative reality themselves. They were so old, and so strange, that they had found a kind of existence independent of the pages they occupied. The world of the old tales existed parallel to ours, but sometimes the walls separating the two became so thing and brittle that the two worlds started to blend into each other. That was when the trouble started. That was when the bad things came. That was when the Crooked Man began to appear to David.”