“Just stories? Stories can build up an empire, or strike down a people. You can spell the most powerful spell, ease a friend’s hurt, or break an enemy. Stories make you believe.”

“We don’t have a writ to enter.”“But I have diplomatic immunity.” Ixtli found a window that was loose, and with some persuading, forced it open. “Care to accompany me lest my life be threatened and an incident between our respective countries occurs?”

“I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is "depressing" because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that don't seem to know these things go on, or hide them in resolute chipperness; "witty stories," in which every problem is the occasion for a joke; "upbeat" stories that flog you with transcendence. Please. We're grown ups now.”

“There’s no right way to tell all stories, only the right way to tell a particular story.”

“Had he learned nothing from all those years of teaching Hawthorne? Through story after story he’d led his boys to consider the folly of obsession with purity – its roots sunk deep in pride, flowering condemnation and violence against others and self.”

“It was one of those fine little love stories that can make you smile in your sleep at night.”

“You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home.”