“Interviewer: The other day, when we first talked, you said that you felt that, when you were writing, you were often following invisible patterns.Stone: I don't see them so much as hear them, and I know that a poem will happen and later I will look at it, and say: Wow, where did that come from? how did I do that? I didn't set out to do that, but the neural connections are so fast, the body, the self is so slow, (laughs) that you're kind of astonished. It's odd.”

“Before the bat could answer, the mockingbird exclaimed angrily: "You sound as if there were something wrong with imitating things!""Oh no," the bat said."Well then, you sound as if there something wrong with driving them off. It's my territory, isn't it? If you can't drive things off your own territory what can you do?"The bat didn't know what to say; after a minute the chipmunk said uneasily, "He just meant it's odd to drive them all off and then imitate them so well too.""Odd!" cried the mockingbird. "Odd! If I didn't it really would be odd. Did you ever hear of a mockingbird that didn't?"The bat said politely, "No indeed. No, it's just what mockingbirds do do. That's really why I made up the poem about it--I admire mockingbirds so much, you know."The chipmunk said, "He talks about them all the time.""A mockingbird's sensitive," said the mockingbird; when he said sensitive his voice went way up and way back down. "They get on my nerves. You just don't understand how much they get on my nerves. Sometimes I think if I can't get rid of them I'll go crazy.""If they didn't get on your nerves so, maybe you wouldn't be able to imitate them so well, the chipmunk said in a helpful, hopeful voice.”

“Did the men steal the papers?" Reynie asked, fearing her response.No, because they are fools," Sophie said bitterly. "They demanded to see the papers, and when I did not answer fast enough -- they were very frightening, you see -- they hurt me so that I was not awake. . . . When I opened my eyes they were still trying to find the papers. They did not understand how we organize the library, you see. They were angry and creating a bad mess. . . . The police were coming and the men decided they must leave. I shouted at them as they left: 'It is a free and public library! All you had to do was ask!”

“I am always hearing. . . the sound of a far off song. I do not exactly know where it is, or what it means; and I don't hear much of it, only the odour of its music, as it were, flitting across the great billows of the ocean outside this air in which I make such a storm; but what I do hear, is quite enough to make me able to bear the cry from the drowning ship. So it would you if you could hear it.''No it wouldn't,' returned Diamond stoutly. 'For they wouldn't hear the music of the far-away song; and if they did, it wouldn't do them any good. You see you and I are not going to be drowned, and so we might enjoy it.''But you have never heard the psalm, and you don't know what it is like. Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is coming to swallow up all the cries. . . . It wouldn't be the song it seems if it did not swallow up all their fear and pain too, and set them singing it themselves with all the rest.”

“How did they find out?" Donnal inquired. "Did you set them on fire?""You know, it's so rare that I actually do that, and yet that's always the first question anyone asks me." -Senneth”

“What about me? I love you so much. And I tried to make you go away. I killed you and it didn't help. And I hate it! I hate that it's so hard and that you can hurt me so much. I know everything that you did, because you did it to me. Oh, God! I wish that I wished you dead. I don't. I can't. Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together. But if you're too much of a coward for that, then burn. If I can't convince you that you belong in this world, then I don't know what can. But do not expect me to watch. And don't expect me to mourn for you, because...”