“Our job on earth, as I see it, is to hold on through the hard parts and try and be a good person.”

“The crazy part of my mind is like a mischievous pet I have to keep watch over or it might behave badly while I'm not paying attention.”

“Why does it scare me to think I might be ordinary? I remember when I started first grade and I could hardly pay attention for fear I wouldn't learn to read and write. I didn't want to be like everyone else. I didn't want to have to learn. I wanted to know everything already”

“I've been praying to Jesus and the Holy Ghost for patience and I have also mentioned that it would help if I did not have frizzy hair.”

“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand 'I have a problem, it is the government's job to cope with it!' or 'I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!'; 'I am homeless, the government must house me!' and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society?"There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first."It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.”

“And my eyes! I see through hourglass pupils and therefore I see time-as it affects all things. Even as I look at you now, Tanis," the mage whispered, "I see you dying, slowly, by inches. And so I see every living thing.”

“I said maybe I was too sad for the job: didn’t they want a more upbeat personality in their girls? But Mordis smiled with his shiny black-ant eyes and said, as if he was patting me: “Ren. Ren. Everyone’s too sad for everything.”