“It's funny isn't it, how everything's changing all time. Nothing stays still.”

“You're not really in control, not with this falling-for-people stuff. You don't plan who you're going to fall in love with. It's all random - chance accidents of time and place.”

“Change & transformation. That kind of magic.”

“But you still need the two: the dark and the light. You can't see one without the other.”

“Some things get lost others return. That is how it is: the way of things.”

“That's what memory is like: layers, one overlapping another, and compacting down the way old leaves slowly crumble and turn to a rich peaty soil, nourishing the new things that will grow. It's why it's important, remembering things. It's why it matters, when the memories aren't there, and no one fills in the gaps for you.”

“What i realise now is that the story actually did have a happy ending: the children came back. In spite of everything the adults did to them, the children found their own way home, their pockets full of precious stones and pearls that gleamed and shone in the light.”