“Am I going to be able to provide a real home for her, man? An education? A real life? What's her college application going to look like: 'Raised on Spooky Island by wizard with GED, please help'?”

“Please help me, I begged her silently. "I'm fine." I'm not fine, and I am going to kill someone, and I don't know if I'll be able to stop "I'm fine, let's go back.”

“You," Madeline said, her voice hollow and wheezing, "are like a bad case of herpes, wizard. You're inconvenient, embarassing, no real threat, and you simply will not go away.”

“Wife, to him, was someone who stood for stability, forcoming home, for dealing with all the shit he wasn’t able to deal with. For providing a real life and not this insanity.”

“All you have to do is speak up.Tell him straight up: "I need you here to protect and provide for us, to give us security in our lives, to help raise these children, to set an example for this boy, who needs to see what real men do, and for this girl, who needs to know what a real man is so she can find one of her own someday. I need you to be the head of this family."Lay it out like this, and your requirements will trump his mother's every time.”

“He pulled her against his chest, letting her feel his heart thunder its rhythm. Kissing her hair he whispered, the desperation raw, "You are no dream...but flesh and blood. Tell me you are real...oh, please...be real." "Aye, I am real.”