“This time I felt it was impossible that they could entertain further doubt as to my true condition. Alas, I did not yet know the blindness of orangutans!”

“I know what I did to you was so wrong, but at the time it also felt so necessary to my survival. I don't know if those two things can both be true, but that's how it was.”

“I did not know that I was deep in the throes of fighting my shadow; my shadow being reflected in all those things around me, distracting me from the true problem, and blinding me to myself.”

“You know that if ever the Fyrdraaca family is in true trouble, Barbizon is supposed to come to life and to our rescue, just as she did for Azucar.''Ayah, Poppy, I've heard the story.''Well, I often consider that I've sat here many times, and often felt in true trouble, and yet Barbizon has never leaped to my aid. So you know what that makes me think?''That it's just a story?''No, no. That my trouble is never true trouble. And things, though I think them bad, are not really so.”

“Sometimes I wanted to dance and laugh with my friends until midnight, and sometimes I wanted to screen all calls and hide away with a tragic novel and a bag of candy. Sometimes I spend an hour trying to pretty myself up, and sometimes I could barely be bothered to comb the knots out of my hair before I left the house.Sometimes I wanted to know what it felt like to tell a boy all my secrets. Other times, that seemed as impossible as waking up one morning to find myself fluent in a foreign language.Sometimes I felt better alone that I did with people. And sometimes that just felt lonely.”

“I had no hope. Yet expectation lived on in me, the last thing she had left behind. What further consummations, mockeries, torments did I still anticipate? I had no idea as I abided in the unshaken belief that the time of cruel wonders was not yet over.”