“There were thousands of children just like her in the world. She had walked through the fire and come out the other side scorched, but not consumed by it.”

“Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.”

“The belief that life was hard and often its worst battles were fought in private, that it was possible to walk through fear and come out scorched but still breathing.”

“I felt like a frog that had just come out of its pit, from which it had contemplated the circle of sky outlined by the rim, and taken it for the whole of the world. I had passed through to the other side of the mirror. (162)”

“Yes, the world was very strange. But you had to walk through. That was the trick. You had to keep walking through, always, with your chin held high, the way she had passed through the tunnels of the underworld, with only the dim light of the lumpen to guide her. That was the other trick, the other truth: Light would come to you from unexpected places.”

“He shrugged. "I was...thinking.""About what?""The fires of purgatory."She had to sit down. He wasn't making any sense now. "What does that mean?" she asked."Patrick told me he would walk through the fires of purgatory if he had to in order to please his wife."She went over to the bed and sat down on the side. "And?" she prodded when he didn't continue.He stripped out of his clothing and walked over to her. He pulled her to her feet and stared down to her."And I have only just realized I would do the same for you.”