“Who are you?''My name is Francesca Giordano.'Il re dei contrabbandieri paled. He pressed himself into the high back of his chair and stared at me in disbelief.'You can't be her. She's old and has warts.''Because she is strega? Ask yourself, why would any self-respecting witch go about looking old and with warts?”

“She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty, old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his fact and hands, with hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! --she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the Lady of the Wood.”

“Witches’ Warts! Looks like I’m going to have to break witch law again.”

“You know that you're a true friend when somebody says "But what about that wart on the end of his nose?" and your honest response is "What wart?". You see true friends accept you for what you are, wart and all.”

“If you care about yourself, you should care about learning - even learning simple things. You come to have pride in yourself only by accomplishing things, even from fixing some old stairs...Others can't grant you self-respect, even others who care about you. You have to earn self-respect yourself.”

“You like being in love with someone who’s not going to love you back.” She opened her eyes. He looked at her. “Why would I like that?” she asked. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”