“I believe it, she's a very good person, kind. There's weariness there, but no bitterness or spite. When you're with a girl like that you feel like a different person. You try to be better, and that's a strain. Men prefer to be friends with her kind, flirt a bit, share confidences. They don't often fall in love with girls like that, but everybody loves them.”

“[after guard dogs frozen mid-attack] 'How long are the dogs going to stay hanging there like that?' ask Yulia. 'I want to make friends with them. Otherwise, i'll be left with a latent psychological complex that's bound to affect my personality and sexual preferences.”

“Haggis" is a brand of nappies.' I said. 'They're good, we used them for our daughter.''Haggis is a kind of food too,' said Semyon, shaking his head. 'Although as far as taste goes, there's probably not much difference.”

“You're a Dark One," said Anton. "All you see in everything is evil, treachery, trickery.""All I do is not close my eyes to them," Edgar retorted. "And that's why I don't trust Zabulon. I distrust him almost as much as I do Gesar. I can even trust you more—you're just another unfortunate chess piece who happens by chance to be painted a different color from me. Does a white pawn hate a black one? No. Especially if the two pawns have their heads down together over a quiet beer or two.""You know," Anton said in a slightly surprised voice, "I just don't understand how you can carry on living if you see the world like that. I'd just go and hang myself.""So you don't have any counterarguments to offer?"Anton took a gulp of beer too. The wonderful thing about this natural Czech beer was that even if you drank lots of it, it still didn't make your head or your body feel heavy... Or was that an illusion?"Not a single one," Anton admitted. "Right now, this very moment, not a single one. But I'm sure you're wrong. It's just difficult to argue about the colors of the rainbow with a blind man. There's something missing in you... I don't know what exactly. But it's something very important, and without it you're more helpless than a blind man.”

“You're on your own little quest, an there's a bit of Frodo Baggins in you, and a bit of Verne's Paganel, and just a tiny drop of Robinson Cursoe, and a smidgeon of Radishchev.”

“Do you remember the fairy tale about the mermaid? A witch gave her legs, she could walk, but she felt like there were red hot knives stabbing into her feet all the time. That story's about us, Maxim! We always walk over sharp knives, and that's something you can never get used to. But Hans Christian Anderson didn't tell the whole story. The witch could have done things differently: the mermaid walks, and the knives stab other people. That's the way of the Dark.”

“What kind of monster are you anyway? You should be more humane, Gennady!""I was humane when I was alive," said the vampire.”