“It's sad when you learn you're not much of a hero.”

“It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you always use it on other people. It's different when there are other people involved.”

“It's so much easier to learn to love what you have instead of yearning always for what you're missing, or what you imagine you're missing. It's so much more peaceful.”

“To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant —because you're always going against the conformity of the group.”

“So it's happened, I kept thinking, you're in the middle of a story exactly as you've always wanted, and it's horrible. Fear tastes quite different when you're not just reading about it, Meggie, and playing hero wasn't half as much fun as I'd expected.”

“When you're happy,you enjoy the music.But,when you're sad,you understand the lyrics.”