I knew it wasn’t going to help me. It was a warm kind presence in my hands, but with the kindness of a friend who sits with you in comfort by the fire and can’t change what’s wrong.
I felt as though I were pretending to be grown-up.
I don't think I can do it alone, I said. I had a feeling the wasn't really meant to be cast alone: as if truth didn't mean anything without someone to share it with.
I didn't really understand what mothers were, because mine was in a tree, but I knew they were very good things and you were very angry and sad if you lost them.
He’d also agreed to be betrothed to the Archduke of Varsha’s daughter, a girl of nine who had evidently impressed him a great deal by being able to spit across a garden plot. I was a little dubious ab...
Her beautiful face was blank as an unwritten book.
Gentleness shown once is mercy, shown twice is folly.
Darby, sir, but Janus they call me, the seaman said, on account of a surgeon we shipped in the , a learned bloke, saying I saw both ways like some old Roman cut-up by that name.
But the world I wanted wasn't the world I lived in, and if I would do nothing until I could repair every terrible thing at once, I would do nothing forever.
But I realized now that without quite thinking it through, I'd half-imagined myself a place here in the tower. My little room upstairs, a cheerful rummaging through the laboratory and the library, tor...
Anger was a fire in a grate, and I'd never had any wood to burn. Until now, it seemed.
And to crown the whole, you must needs come back and make a martyr of yourself, so now anyone who cares a farthing for your life must watch you hanged; that is, if they do not decide to make a spectac...
And on the wedding contract, before me and my parents and the rabbi, and Wanda and Sergey for our witnesses, in silver ink he signed his name.But I won't ever tell you what it is.
She didn’t even have time to scream, just gave a startled Oh! and was gone,
They were wild-eyed and terrified even in their courage.
He thought how little the rest of the world should matter to him, when he was secure in the good opinion of those he valued most, and in the knowledge that he was doing his duty.
As though the magic had burned off like the liquor on a pudding.
As if truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen.
And her laugh was like a song that made you want to sing it.
With a demon wanting to devour me, I was feeling inclined to be devout . . .