"We get along like a house on fire these days."

"I love the smell of old books, Mandy sighed, inhaling deeply with the book pressed against her face. The yellow pages smelled of wood and paper mills and mothballs."

"The child psychologist's clinic: where imaginary friends go to die, where dreams go to burn, where creativity goes to drown."

"Just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad."

"Capitalism has a way of letting people view the world through rose-coloured glasses."

"Typical Pollution, they're always living in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"On Wall Street, Clarence was a diamond in a sea of glass, never greedy, never an ambulance-chaser, never the kind of person who deserved to die in the way that he did."

"I can't look people in the eye and tell them that they're going to die anymore."

"People always say that digital cameras are much more stable than film cameras, but the truth is that digital cameras, or any kind of digital technology, is one of the most unstable things in the world. A film camera can last decades if you know how to look after it, but digital things can break down instantly. A violent storm, a nuclear bomb, even something as minor as a cracked screen or the releasing of newer models, can make a digital product just a block of useless metal."

"I used to want to be a cop for a brief time, a detective, solving crimes and upholding the law, ever since I stated watching crime shows in junior high. But being a cop, contrary to what many believe, isn't like the films or television shows that we see every day. If you're the cop who has to have the grim duty of telling a parent that their child was killed, or who loses their friend on a dangerous case, or who has to interview victims of horrible crimes, somehow I imagine that you just want to quit forever on some days."

"Film photography will always be superior to digital - because no matter how many lasers and instant buttons and HD pixels you've got, a human being can take a photograph with much more integrity and meaning than one a built-in robot took."

"Mandy was thinking back to when she was five years old, when she, her parents and Jud went outside before Christmas and had a snowball fight with the gray snow of Sydney Mines. "This is a wicked blast, Jud would say, and Mandy would snap photos with a 35mm disposable film camera, photos she wished very much she could step into sometimes."

"You have more issues than Reader's Digest."

“Mandy, I hardly think this was appropriate, not after—you know—after the funeral. We haven't had the money for any of your weird little games, and I was hoping you'd be more mature now that Jud's gone,” her father had added disappointedly.
“How much'd that cake cost you?”
“It's paid for,” Mandy had argued, but her voice had sounded tiny in the harbour wind. “I used the cash from my summer job at Frenchy's last year, and I—it was my birthday, Dad!”
“You can't even be normal about this one thing, can you?” her father had complained.
Mandy hadn't cried; she'd only stared back knowingly, her voice shaky. “I'm normal.”

"This is my home, Cape Breton is my home, and I don't know if I really want to leave it as much as I might think and I'm sort of scared to leave it all behind, everything I've lived with, I have so many memories of all the things I've done here and I'm afraid if I leave, I might lose all my memories."

"Mandy would much rather have imaginary friends who were real than real friends who were imaginary."

"One of the many downsides to being a drug addict is never really knowing if the stuff is real."

"Amanda, you finally decided to answer the phone, her mom exclaimed after picking up at the first ring. "Where've you been, what've you been up to?"Mom, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, he was a Personification of the Sydney Tar Ponds, sort of my imaginary friend? Mandy asked."No, what in the name of god are you on about? her mom sighed in exasperation."Remember? Only I could see him, but he was real and he was my best friend when I was eighteen? Mandy insisted."No, I don't remember Alecto Sydney Steele at all, said her mom all too quickly."

"Winters are a desolate time where all senses are wiped away, and here in Canada, this is especially true. All smells are sucked clean from the air, leaving only a harsh, icy crispness. Colours are stripped away, leaving a stark white landscape, a sky which stays black at night and gray in the day, a world of only three shades. Stay outside too long, and your hands will get so cold that they'll go numb and turn red, like the claws of a lobster. During a whiteout, even sight itself is reduced to nothingness."

"Mandy loved the smell of a sunny day after a night of rain. The sun hit the orange puddles, the overgrown, soft, green grass on her lawn, and it beamed down through the orange steel mill smog, sending otherworldly, bizarre shadows across the concrete sidewalk."

"Her laughter sounded like April showers, like whispered secrets, like glass wind-chimes."

"When did the very first case of racism even occur? When did such blind hatred devour the souls of men and make them turn on their own brothers and sisters? What ever taught them that it was normal to be such monsters?"

"I don't want any other friends! They'd never be as good a friend as you are."

"So many people spend years (and money) studying to be doctors, lawyers, actors, dancers, business executives and scientists - when you're an author, you can be any of these things, and you don't need a degree or certificate; all you need is an imagination, a dream and an open mind."

“Mearth appeared angry and disappointed briefly, but then she just gazed at the ground.
‘It must be horrible, feeling all alone, is it?’ she asked.
‘Oh, not really,’ said Alecto, his eyes lifeless, his voice listless. ‘I’m going to be forgotten by someone who I can’t forget, though. That will be terrible—but maybe it’s better if she does forget me altogether.’”

"Most people are as happy as other people decide they should be."