“Being a hero, the man had observed, is largely a matter of knowing one’s cues.”

“The real problem with being around James was that he was always the hero. And what did that make you? Either the sidekick or the villain.”

“Maybe this was one of those times when being a hero didn’t involve looking particularly brave. It was just doing what you should.”

“Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief.”

“Both their attention and their neglect were equally intolerable. His world had become complicated and interesting and magical. Theirs was mundane and domestic. They didn't understand that the world they could see wasn't the one that mattered, and they never would.”

“A big silvery janitor. Penny, this can’t be how the universe works.” “In the Order we call it ‘inverse profundity.’ We’ve observed it in any number of cases. The deeper you go into the cosmic mysteries, the less interesting everything gets.”

“As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.”