“You will learn more from a glorious failure than ever you will from something that you never finished.”

“Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious failure than you ever will from something you never finished.”

“Be proud of your mistakes. Well, proud may not be exactly the right word, but respect them, treasure them, be kind to them, learn from them. And, more than that, and more important than that, make them. Make mistakes. Make great mistakes, make wonderful mistakes, make glorious mistakes. Better to make a hundred mistakes than to stare at a blank piece of paper too scared to do anything wrong.”

“I would have given my life for you," she whispered, sadly."Live," said the monk."You shall be revenged," said the fox. "The onmyoji who did this to you will learn what it means to take something from a fox.”

“That's the trouble with you young people. You think because you ain't been here long, you know everything. In my life I already forgot more than you ever know.”

“If you want to call it that. But it is a very specific sort of magic. There's a magic you take from death. Something leaves the world, something else comes into it.”

“Often the adult book is not for you, not yet, or will only be for you when you're ready. But sometimes you will read it anyway, and you will take from it whatever you can. Then, perhaps, you will come back to it when you're older, and you will find the book has changed because you have changed as well, and the book is wiser, or more foolish, because you are wiser or more foolish than you were as a child.”