“Once you have been touched by magic, you are forever changed. You leave a trail.”

“And once begun, change cannot be reversed.”

“It is not easy to watch the world change around you. To see an entire way of life change and change and change again. It isn't easy to watch friends grown old and die, nor is it easy to be constantly moving on from place to place before people begin to wonder why you never age.”

“Marethyu stretched out his right hand and Aten took it in his. "Let me tell you this," the hook-handed man said. "We will meet again,you and I,in a different place and a different time.""You know this to be true?""I do.""Because you have seen the future?""Because I have been there.”

“What you call magic is nothing more than an act of the imagination fired by the senses, then given shape by the power of your aura.”

“An old gunslinger once told me that you never draw a gun unless you intend to use it, and you never—ever—tell someone you are going to draw your gun. You just do it.”

“There have always been people like you, Nicholas Flamel. People who think they know what's best, who decide what people should see and read and listen to, who ultimately try to shape how the rest of the world think and acts. I've spent my entire life fighting the likes of you.”