“But something is going to happen, that's for sure. It depends on how bold we choose to be. We could get out, maybe, or we could die, or we could be badly injured going over a waterfall and end up on a gravel beach only to be found by a young boy who would carve messages in their toes and shove us back out to sea. There are lots of possibilities, and I am happy with all of them.""Do you like mornings?" Tom asked, leaning on his elbow."Not usually," Reg said. "I'm typically rather sullen over my breakfast, and I'm sure the crawdads notice. But what is truly strange is that I never liked mornings when I could have them with real sunrises and real dew on roses and real paperboys wrecking real bicycles on the sidewalk outside my window. How I ever could have remained asleep and voluntarily missed a sunrise, I can't explain. If you're right and we get out, I don't think I'll miss another one.”

“You know,' Reg said, 'we're going to get out. We really are. Even if we have to let fire to the ceiling.' He glopped jam onto a white crawdad tail with a grit covered finger. 'But we have to eat enough of this so that we get sick and die a couple days after.”

“Frank sniffed. 'You know me well, wife. I thought those were in the basement.''They were. You should have been an English teacher, Frank.''What are we going to do?' Henry asked.'We're going to build a wooden horse, stick you inside it, and offer it up as a gift,' Frank answered.'Burn your bridges when you come to them,' Dotty said. She smiled at Frank, picked up the empty plates, and walked back into the kitchen.'Can we watch?' Henrietta asked.'You,' Frank said, 'can go play in the barn, the yard, the fields, or the ditches, so long as you are nowhere near the action. C'mon, Henry.'The girls moaned and complained while Henry followed his uncle up the stairs. At the top, they walked all the way around the landing until they faced the very old, very wooden door to Grandfather's bedroom. Uncle Frank set down his tools.'Today is the day, Henry. I can feel it. I never told your aunt this, but my favorite book's in there. I was reading it to your Grandfather near the end. It's been due back at the library for awhile now, and it'd be nice to be able to check something else out.”

“After three years down here, I've not learned too much. But one thing I do know is that our bellies aren't big enough for revenge. It turns sour and eats you up. We'll get out, but we'll get out for the sun, the moon, and mothers, not for small-souled enemies, though we'll deal with them when we get there.”

“If your boy's alive, the last thing you should want to do is double his trouble. Don't try to run to him when he's in something thick unless you can bring him the answer. ... If you raised your boy how you should've, then you know he's fighting with what he's got. If he dies, then you'll know he died trying, and that's as much as you can ask. ... Ted's gone. But he left you a son made out of the same stuff he was, and don't you underestimate him. If you know Tom, then you'll have some faith in the boy. The odds might be long, but I'll bet on him.”

“Cool. I was hanging out with a lunatic I'd found lurking over a dead person. I had a choice here. I could roll with this and somehow figure out how to get back to my real life, or I could freak out and lose it right here, probably be committed with him, and end up in a loony bin of truly epic Victorian ugliness, never to be seen again.”

“Maybe I could love you someday."If you ever do," he said, "come and let me know. You know where to find me."Her teeth were chattering harder. "I can't lose you, Simon. I can't."You never will. I'm not leaving you. But I'd rather have what we have, which is real and true and important, than have you pretend anything else. When I'm with you, I want to know I'm with the real you, the real Clary."She leaned her head against his, closing her eyes. He still felt like Simon, despite everything; still smelled like him, like his laundry soap. "Maybe I don't know who that is."But I do.”