“It is scary, sometimes, Tomas admitted. But the scary bits are what make you brave.”

“I suppose that's what happens when you make other people's lives miserable: life gets miserable back at you.”

“Nothing was easy, and sometimes she failed, and sometimes she thought that the fairy stories were right, that there must indeed be easier ways of living happily ever after; but defeat is a poor ending to any tale, so she kept trying.”

“You're not supposed to have iron bars around you - no one is supposed to have that. You're supposed to fall down hills and get lonely, and find your own food and get wet when it rains. That's what happens when you're alive.”

“Affection makes fools. Always, without exception, love digs a channel that's sooner or later flooded by the briny water of despair.”

“Life is lived on the inside. What's outside doesn't matter.”

“Every atom in me feels composed of lead. This is what dying is: a pull to the ground.”