“How can we continue to have festivities after so many have died? (Rowena)The same way we managed to laugh while we were in prison. You have to, otherwise you will go mad from the grief. Sometimes it helps to shout. Let the angels hear your rage. (Stryder)”

“Put you weapon away. (Rowena)Why should I when I have half a mind to make good use of it on you? (Stryder)So you admit to having only half a mind, then? (Rowena)”

“Knave of hearts and bane to all women, be it known that you must win your tournament for me, otherwise I shall have a most difficult time explaining to my new lord my newest addition.-A letter to Stryder, from Rowena”

“...you have to learn where your pain is. You have to burrow down and find the wound, and if the burden of it is too terrible to shoulder, you have to shout it out; you have to shout for help... And then finally, the way through grief is grieving.”

“If we are all going to have tragedies, if none of us can escape them, then surely we have to learn from them, we have to gain something. And we have to use what we have gained. Those of us who have fought tooth and nail to overcome tragedy are, after all, nothing else, proof that such things can be survived. So we can actually help others survive their tragedies too. As long as they’ll let us.”

“You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn’t. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you, I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. Lucy was well-meaning enough. But if she’d have her way, your happiness at Hailsham would have been shattered. Look at you both now! I’m so proud to see you both. You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn’t be who you are today if we’d not protected you. You wouldn’t have become absorbed in your lessons, you wouldn’t have lost yourselves in your art and your writing. Why should you have done, knowing what lay in store for each of you? You would have told us it was all pointless, and how could we have argued with you? So she had to go.”