I do, I’m afraid, understand books far more readily than I understand people. Books are so easy to get along with.

People say we can't do anything about the way the world is; they say it's set in stone. I say it looks like stone, but it's mostly paint and cardboard.

No harm in listening. Alexei's a child, not a wizard. We don't lose control of our brains by listening.

If music can shine, Sophie thought, this music shone... 'It's like eight thousand birds, Charles!'When the music closed, she clapped until the rest of the audience had stopped and until her hands were hot and blotched with red... There was something in the music that felt familiar to Sophie. 'It feels,' she said to Charles, 'like home.

Perhaps, she thought, that’s what love does. It’s not there to make you feel special. It’s to make you brave. It was like a ration pack in the desert, she thought, like a box of matches in a dark wood. Love and courage, thought Sophie—two words for the same thing.

You will never be tougher than you are now. Children are the toughest creatures on the planet. They endure.

Sometimes it seemed difficult for the adults in Sophie's life to tell between 'carried away' and 'absolutely correct but unbelieved.

You have been the great green adventure of my life. Without you my days would be unlit.

It is difficult to believe extraordinary things.

He was thirty-six years old, and six foot three. He spoke English to people and French to cats, and Latin to the birds. He had once nearly killed himself trying to read and ride a horse at the same time.

Let me introduce you. Sophie, this is Miss Eliot, from the National Childcare Agency. Miss Eliot, this is Sophie, from the ocean.

Only weak thinkers do not love the sky.

Governments can do both great and stupid things.

Stories can start revolutions.

It's inhuman to take your books away before you know the end.

Wolves, and stars, and snow: Those things made sense.

Cowardice is for cowards. Fear is for people with brains and eyes and functioning nerve endings.

Wolves are the witches of the animal world.

Keep you secret, then, my darling. Everybody needs them. Secrets make you tough, and wily.

It's like they've forgotten everything important, isn't it? I mean, forgotten things like cats and dancing exist.

But those coins are wishes! You’re stealing other people’s wishes!”The look Matteo gave her was so flinty, she could have chipped a tooth on it. “If you have money to waste on wishes, you don’t need the wishes as badly as I need the money.

There were, in Feo's experience, five kinds of cold. There was wind cold, which Feo barely felt. It was fussy and loud and turned your cheeks as red as if you'd been slapped, but couldn't kill you even if it tried. There was snow cold, which plucked at your arms and chapped your lips, but brought real rewards. It was Feo's favorite weather: The snow was soft and good for making snow wolves. There was ice cold, which might take the skin off your palm if you let it, but probably wouldn't if you were careful. Ice cold smelled sharp and knowing. It often came with blue skies and was good for skating. Feo had respect for ice cold. Then there was hard cold, which was when the ice cold got deeper and deeper until at the end of a month you couldn't remember if the summer had ever really existed. Hard cold could be cruel. Birds died in midflight. It was the kind of cold that you booted and kicked your way through.And then there was blind cold. Blind cold smelled of metal and granite. It took all the sense out of your brain and blew the snow into your eyes until they were glued shut and you had to rub spit into them before they would blink. Blind cold was forty degrees below zero. This was the kind of cold that you didn't sit down to think in, unless you wanted to be found dead in the same place in May or June.Feo had felt blind cold only once.