“You didn’t get the quest you wanted, you got the one you could do.”

“It was strange to be naked in front of anybody. It was like that cold water out there in the bay: scary, you didn’t think you could stand it, but then you plunged in and pretty soon you got used to it. There was enough hiding in life. Sometimes you just wanted to show somebody your tits.”

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

“That’s what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a child’s game, to be crumpled up and thrown away when it was over. It didn’t matter. Death didn’t respect you. Death thought you were bullshit, and it wanted to make sure you knew it.”

“You can't just decide to be happy.""No, you can't. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want? Do you want to be the asshole who went to Fillory and was miserable there? Even in Fillory? Because that's who you are right now."There was something true about what Alice was saying. But he couldn't grasp it. It was too complex, or too simple. Too something...It was strange: he's thought that doing magic was the hardest thing he would ever do, but the rest of it was so much harder. It turned out that magic was the easy part.”

“He wasn't surprised. He was used to this anticlimactic feeling, where by the time you've done all the work to get something you don't even want it anymore.”

“When she looked back the whole thing had a queer, unreal feeling to it, but then again you often get a queer, unreal feeling when you stay up till four and get up at seven.”