"I hear Mr. Palmer tell Hannah that it was an electrical fault. Five arsonists in one school and it ends up being something so technically boring."

"And won't he grow up to be the healthiest of young men, all because she kept him safe? Ready for the world. Ready to one day conquer it. To travel. Get on a train. Go to work. Get blown out of her life.Maybe she should be having that glass of wine and cigarette after all."

"How can you just forget a person completely until the moment you see his face again?"

"The gods whispered to you once, Finnikin. And you listened. But they are proud and refuse to speak to those who do not believe that there is something out there mightier than the minds and intellect of mortals."

"Fifteen minutes later I was an expert. That's all you need. I think I was even getting the upper hand, which is very simple with a guy. Anything seems to turn them on."

"Just say up on the hill is the meaning of life and someone knew it and they wanted everyone else to enjoy it. So they put a red vinyl sofa up there."

"Imagine the state of one's mind if they were to recall its details. All those months cocooned and then the onslaught of this ugly world. Lights and noise and strangeness. It's no wonder we scream with terror at our birth."

"It's all rather political, mourning is."

"But grieving people are selfish. They won't let you comfort them and they say you don't understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you've been functional to them."

"I still wake with your name on my lips every morning."

"She made a sound of regret. 'We come second, you and I, Luc-ien,' she said. 'Our allegiance is always to our kingdoms. Without that allegiance, our people would fall.'She placed her head back against his chest and he felt her tears. 'This is not our time.''But that will never mean I love you less,' he said."

"But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for."

"Hannah, do you think that your mum and dad and Tate's mum and dad and my mum and dad and Webb and Tate are all together someplace?' she asks earnestly. I look at Hannah, waiting for the answer. And then she smiles. Webb once said that a Narnie smile was a revelation and, at this moment, I need a revelation. And I get one. 'I wonder,' Hannah says."

"Are you an idiot, or an idiot?' Gargarin hissed.'The first one. I really resent being called the second."

"City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure."

"Don't believe in God. Love the world just the way it is."

"Mama says that satisfaction isn't what I should search for. Respect is. Respect?I detest that word. Probably because in this world you have to respect the wrong people for the wrong reasons."

"I determine my own worth. If I had to rely on others, I'd have lain down and died waiting."

"Promise me you'll never stop dreaming."

"Oh, you've outdone me twice now, you queen of forgiveness. The ring's a promise of peace and I'm greedy with hope. It's a song that we sing in a tongue that we share. And though you say it's a gift from a king to a king, I say it's a sign from a queen to a queen."

"I don't despise you for what you allowed to happen to me. I despise you because when I was released, you refused to be found and I needed you more than anything in my life. Not to mend my broken bones, Arjuro. I needed my brother to mend my broken spirit."

"In the end, the sum of my vices is all me."

"And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for.He wished that he had never met any of them."

"Then I choose to drown. In hope. Rather than float into nothing."

"If she allowed herself to give in to the whole sadness of it, she'd never ever be able to operate like a normal person again."

"When a woman has not received much flattery in her life, she will be seduced."

"He bursts out laughing. It's short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction's already mine."

"For reasons he couldn't understand a sadness came over him and it was then he saw the girl standing on the other side of the dirt road, her eyes pools of absolute sorrow, her light brown hair glowing in the splinters of sunlight that forced their way through the trees."

"I've wept enough in my life. I have no tears left."

"He knows bad days. Bad days take him completely by surprise. They make him not trust the good days because it's likely something is lurking twenty-four hours away."

"Today this courtyard was filled with great warriors. What is more? But it was not filled with great men who have the heart to rule a kingdom. Any man can kill, Finnikin. It is a stroke, an action with one's hand. But not every man knows how to lead."

"If there was one weapon he had against these savages, it was not acknowledging their existence."

"People divulge things to you that they would not divulge to anyone else."

"Sometimes you don't let us talk about how we're feeling. If we feel scared, you say, 'Nothing to worry about, guys,' but that doesn't make it go away. It makes it grow."

"But then Froi looked back to where his work lay unfinished and it made him sad because there had been something about the touch of earth in his hands that made him feel worthwhile."

"Simple dreams are the hardest to come true."

"Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories."

"I never thought meeting you would be this boring. I thought we'd put our Italian emotion into gear and scream the place down. I never expected indifference."

"I'd run you know. It's like when you're really busy doing something and you don't have time to think about things. Well, I'd run and run and run so I couldn't think."

"It's not as if he's good-looking, because he's not. Sometimes he's so plain that he looks bland. But it's his voice and his mannerisms that fill him with some kind of color. I listen to his voice and its resonance hooks me in. The worry lines on his forehead, his expression when he twists his face into a smile, and the way his whole face lights up when he laughs those short bursts of laughter."

"My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.I counted.It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I'd ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, 'What's the difference between a trip and a journey?' and my father said, 'Narnie, my love, when we get there, you'll understand,' and that was the last thing he ever said."

"Up in the distance the whistle of the wind sang to her from the mountain. From Lucian's mountain. It beckoned and taunted and she wanted to run towards it. To be enveloped in its coat of fleece and to hear its safe sounds."

"In the games of queens and kings, we leave our dreams at the door and we make do with what we have. Sometimes if we're fortunate, we still manage to have a good life."

"It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love."

"The string slices into the skin of his fingers and no matter how tough the calluses, it tears. But this beat is fast and even though his joints are aching, his arm's out of control like it has a mind of its own and the sweat tat drenches his hair and face seems to smother him, but nothing's going to stop Tom. He;s aiming for oblivion."

"Then he holds her and for a moment I hear total silence; that totally silent part of a cry that announces that the most horrible grief is going to follow. And it does, and he's muffling it, but I can hear and I want someone to come over and jab her with a sedative because its pitch pierces my soul."

"The pages aren't numbered, so I don't know whether I have the beginning or end or whether it's in sequence but these days I'm not really looking for continuity.All I'm after is something that makes sense to me."

"Truth is dangerous."

"Play me something that makes me feel;This soul inside me is made of steel.Brain is breathing, but heart's not beatingAnd, babe, I need you to make things real.Walk inside me without silence,Kill the past and change the tense.Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring;Take me places that make more sense."

"If you close your eyes, you get to control your own darkness."