“Do not resent your place in the story. Do not imagine yourself elsewhere. Do not close your eyes and picture a world without thorns, without shadows, without hawks. Change this world. Use your body like a tool meant to be used up, discarded, and replaced. Better every life you touch. We will reach the final chapter. When we have eyes that can stare into the sun, eyes that only squint for the Shenikah, then we will see laughing children pulling cobras by their tails, and hawks and rabbits playing tag.”

“The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not try to pretend there is no danger. Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.”

“Do you dislike your role in the story, your place in the shadow? What complaints do you have that the hobbits could not have heaved at Tolkien? You have been born into a narrative, you have been given freedom. Act, and act well until you reach your final scene.”

“In this story, the sun moves. In this story, every night meets a dawn and burns away in the bright morning. In this story, Winter can never hold back the Spring... He is the best of all possible audiences, the only Audience to see every scene, the Author who became a Character and heaped every shadow on Himself. The Greeks were right. Live in fear of a grinding end and a dank hereafter. Unless you know a bigger God, or better yet, are related to Him by blood.”

“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.”

“Mumbling priests swinging stick cans on their chains and even witch doctors conjuring up curses with a well-buried elephant tooth have a better sense of their places in the world. They know this universe is brimming with magic, with life and riddles and ironies. They know that the world might eat them, and no encyclopedia could stop it.”

“Your life is your own, your glory is your glory, but you will lose it if you keep it for yourself. Grasp it for the sake of others...”