“If you could see how beautiful the forest is! I sometimes slip away there at days end after my work day and I always return overwhelmed. It has such a calm, such a terrible grandeur, to the point that I am surprised that I feel genuinely afraid. I don't know what the trees says amongst themselves, but they say something we don't speak the same language.”

“I don't know. Sometimes, I feel nothing, and I'm so afraid. Afraid I'll stop feeling anything at all. I'll just slip away inside myself...I just need to feel something" A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 177, by”

“He likes a day in the studio to end, he says, "when my knees are all skinned up and my pants are wet and my hair's off to one side and I feel like I've been in the foxhole all day. I don't think comfort is good for music. It's good to come out with skinned knuckles after wrestling with something you can't see. I like it when you come home at the end of the day from recording and someone says, "What happened to your hand?" And you don't even know. When you're in that place, you can dance on a broken ankle.”

“I say, you don't know how I could raise fifty quid somehow, do you?""Why don't you work?""Work?" said young Bingo, surprised. "What, me? No, I shall have to think of some way.”

“You come to work every day but you hardly get to know anyone. I don't even know the names of half the people I see in the elevators. They say the company is a big family, but I don't know them. And even the people I do, like you two, and Elizabeth, and Roger - do I really? I mean, I like you guys, but we only ever talk about work. When I'm out with friends, or at home, I never talk about work. The other day, I tried to explain to my sister why it's such a huge deal that Elizabeth ate Roger's donut, and she thought I was insane. And you know what, I agreed with her. At home I couldn't even think why it mattered. Because I'm a different person at home. When I leave this place at night, I can feel myself changing. Like shifting gears in my head. And you guys don't know that; you just know what I'm like here, which is terrible, because I think I'm better away from work. I don't even like who I am here. Is that just me? Or is everyone different when they come to work? If they are, then what are they really like? How can we ever know? All we know are the Work People.”

“It is how it has always been. We will accept the legacy of our ancestors,' Asha says, smiling, and in her smile I do not see warmth or wisdom; I see fear.You're afraid of losing your hold on them,' I say coolly.I? I have no power.'Don't you? If you keep them from the magic, they will never know what their lives could be.'They will remain protected,' Asha insists.No,' I say. 'Only untested'-page 569”