“It was the terror of impermanence, the knowledge that all this would pass away, that a beautiful voice or a wonderful figure was something whose arrival you couldn't control and whose departure you couldn't delay.”

“You couldn't say 'I had orders.' You couldn't say 'It's not fair.' No one was listening. There were no Words. You owned yourself. [...] Not 'Thou Shalt Not'. Say 'I Will Not'.”

“And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...”

“Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle.”

“All witches who'd lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way.”

“Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust "Mothers of Borogravia!" and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust?Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...”

“You were the kind of kid who couldn't see the difference between throwing rocks at a cat and setting it on fire.”