“Too many!' James shouted, and slammed the door behind him.”

“On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,Must the youngest open the oldest hillsThrough the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.There fire shall fly from the raven boy,And the silver eyes that see the wind,And the light shall have the harp of gold.By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,Yet singing the golden harp shall guideTo break their sleep and bid them ride.When light from the lost land shall return,Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,And where the midsummer tree grows tallBy Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.”

“Will picked a single blossom from a gorse bush beside him; it shone bright yellow on his grubby hand. "People are very complicated," he said sadly."So they are," John Rowlands said. His voice deepened a little, louder and clearer than it had been. "But when the battles between you and your adversaries are done, Will Stanton, in the end the fate of all the world will depend on just those people, and on how many of them are good or bad, stupid or wise. And indeed it is all so complicated that I would not dare foretell what they will do with their world. Our world.”

“Still in the black hemisphere the stars blazed and slowly wheeled; beneath them, Will felt so infinitesimally small that it seemed impossible he should even exist. Immensity pressed in on him, terrifying, threatening--and then, in a swift flash of movement like a dance, like the glint of a leaping fish, came a flick of brightness in the sky from a shooting star... He heard Bran give a small chirrup of delight, a spark struck from the same bright sudden joy that filled his own being.”

“Go away," he said. "Go away. I wish you had never come here. I wish I had never heard of the Light and the Dark, and your damned old Merriman and his rhymes. If I had your golden harp now I would throw it in the sea. I am not a part of your stupid quest anymore, I don't care what happens to it. And Cafall was never a part of it either, or a part of your pretty pattern. He was my dog, and I loved him more than anything in the world, and now he is dead. Go away.”

“For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.”

“The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.”