“There are a lot of advantages to being self-taught. Quality of instruction is not one of them.”

“Everyone wanted to create his own history. There was nothing as powerful as the written word; history had taught them all that much.”

“That was the advantage of a young mind--believing was easier.”

“Every single person is vulnerable to unexpected defeat in this inmost emotional self. At every moment, behind the most efficient seeming adult exterior, the whole world of the person's childhood is being carefully held like a glass of water bulging above the brim. And in fact, that child is the only real thing in them. It's their humanity, their real individuality, the one that can't understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die, in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. That's the carrier of all the living qualities. It's the centre of all the possible magic and revelation.”

“Once born into childlike faith, brimming with belief, typical people begin to lose their faith. Society mocks them. Their friends smirk. They come to change the world, but over time the world changes them. Soon they forget who they were; they forget the faith they once had. Then one day someone tells them the truth, but they don’t want to go back, because they’re comfortable in their new skin. Being a stranger in this world is never easy.”

“Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.”

“Because she, too, was the Dark One, wasn't she? They all were, as much as they were all Forest Dwellers, without Elyon's cleansing waters. Yet they were chosen. It was up to them to follow either the one who had made them dark, or the one who had chosen each of them. Teeleh or Elyon.”