“Art is a conversation we are all invited to and are all worthy to participate in. Yes, great works can be intimidating, but no one else in the world has what you have—your voice, your eyes, your feeling and perspective. Other people have written great books, but no one else will ever write YOUR book. It's worth writing. That is the belief that carries me through.”

“You, of all people, understand the burden of having to prove that you are good enough to exist, that you are worth all the grief your mother caused everyone. Bastard equals monster in our hearts’ respective lexicons; that’s why you always had such insight into it.”

“He did not know the truth of me, yet he had perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed. And in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertigi-nous moment, made me want to be better than I was.”

“Your lies didn't stop me loving you; your truth hasn't stopped me either.”

“Music is only work when someone else makes you do it.”

“...it's as if I have just solved Skivver's predictive equations, or even better, as if I have intuited the One Equation, seen the numbers behind the moon and the stars, behind mountains and history, art and death and yearning, as if my comprehension is large enough that it can encompass universes, from the beginning to the end of time.”

“Please, Orma, I’ve already gotten you in so much trouble—” “That I can’t possibly get into more. Take it.” He wouldn’t stop glaring at me until I’d put the earring back on its cord. “You are all that’s left of Linn. Her own people won’t even say her name. I—I value your continued existence.” I could not speak; he had pierced me to my very heart.”