“As a sad, grey dawn broke over the hillside he came upon a ruined cottage [named Broken-Heart Farm] which did not so much seem to have broken its heart, as its neck.”

“When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog.Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!”

“He did not feel as if he were inside a Pillar of Darkness in the middle of Yorkshire; he felt more as if the rest of the world had fallen away and he and Strange were left alone upon a solitary island or promontory. The idea distressed him a great deal less than one might have supposed. He had never much cared for the world and he bore its loss philosophically.”

“He thought he stood upon an English hillside. Rain was falling; it twisted in the air like grey ghosts. Rain fell upon him and he grew thin as rain. Rainwashed away thought, washed away memory, all the good and the bad. He no longer knew his name. Everything was washed away like mud from a stone. Rain filled him up with thoughts and memories of its own. Silver lines of water covered the hillside, like intricate lace, like the veins of an arm. Forgetting that he was, or ever had been, a man, he became the lines of water. He fell into the earth with the rain.He thought he lay beneath the earth, beneath England. Long ages passed; cold and rain seeped through him; stones shifted within him. In the Silence and the Dark he grew vast.He became the earth; he became England. A star looked down on him and spoke tohim.A stone asked him a question and he answered it in its own language. A rivercurled at his side; hills budded beneath his fingers. He opened his mouth and breathed out spring.He thought he was pressed into a thicket in a dark wood in winter. The trees went on forOver dark pillars separated by thin, white slices of winter light. He lookeddown. Young saplings pierced him through and through; they grew up through his body, through his feet and hands. His eye-lids would no longer close because twigs had grown up through them.”

“I reached out my hand, England's rivers turned and flowed the other way...I reached out my hand, my enemies's blood stopt in their veins...I reached out my hand; thought and memory flew out of my enemies' heads like a flock of starlings;My enemies crumpled like empty sacks.I came to them out of mists and rain;I came to them in dreams at midnight;I came to them in a flock of ravens that filled a northern sky at dawn;When they thought themselves safe I came to them in a cry that broke the silence of a winter wood...The rain made a door for me and I went through it;The stones made a throne for me and I sat upon it;Three kingdoms were given to me to be mine forever;England was given to me to be mine forever.The nameless slave wore a silver crown;The nameless slave was a king in a strange country...The weapons that my enemies raised against me are venerated in Hell as holy relics;Plans that my enemies made against me are preserved as holy texts;Blood that I shed upon ancient battlefields is scraped from the stained earth by Hell's sacristans and placed in a vessel of silver and ivory.I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritanceBut Englishmen have despised my giftMagic shall be written upon the sky by the rain but they shall not be able to read it;Magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills but their minds shall not be able to contain it;In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it...Two magicians shall appear in England...The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;The second shall see his dearest posession in his enemy's hand...The first shall pass his life alone, he shall be his own gaoler;The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside...I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me.The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it...The nameless slave shall wear a silver crownThe nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country...”

“He gave her his heart. She took it and placed it quietly in the pocket of her gown. No one observed what she did.”

“Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger (from Ladies of Grace Adieu).”