“The magic in these Masonic rituals is very, very old. And way back in those days, it worked. As time went on, and it started being used for spectacle, to consolidate what were only secular appearances of power, it began to lose its zip. But the words, moves, and machinery have been more or less faithfully carried down over the millennia, through the grim rationalizing of the World, and so the magic is still there, though latent, needing only to touch the right sensitive head to reassert itself.”

“Sometimes it seemed as if he'd always been very old. People said that time lasted for ever when you were young. That was lies. Lies and rosy spectacles. His spectacles were steel frames and time was those tattoos on Vasco's arm. They were more like time than anything else. Once, in the Empire of Junk, he'd seen an hour-glass. Now that came closest to the truth. Except you could turn it upside down and start again. So that was lies too. The sand should run out the first time, run right out. Once, and once only. Time wasn't outside you, it was inside. [...] Time was something that went bad, like fruit. To be used before it was all used up. Though, for most people, the only way to live was to deny that.”

“Magic," the man in the grey suit repeats, turning the word into a laugh. "This is not magic. This is the way the word is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it.”

“This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it.”

“Every life force has a color and a tone. Many in your world would call this an aura, but it's much more complicated than that as anyone who could see would be able to tell you. Every life force carries a certain amount of power. Only those with the ability to use magic can draw upon the force of nature. And even that isn't accurate. The ability to use nature as the driving force behind your own power is a very intricate magic.”

“I love you." Why it worked right then, why the webbing of my godmother's spell frayed as though the words had been an open flame, I don't know. I haven't found any explanation for it. There aren't any magical words, really. The words just hold the magic. They give it a shape and a form, they make it useful, describe the images within. I'll say this, though: Some words have a power that has nothing to do with supernatural forces. They resound in the heart and mind, they live long after the sounds of them have died away, they echo in the heart and the soul. They have power, and that power is very real. Those three words are good ones.”