History is a funny little creature. Do you remember visiting your old Aunt that autumn when the trees shone so very yellow, and how she owned a striped and unsocial cat, quite old and fat...

I will never be without information,’ she determined. ‘I will do better than my sisters. If a bird or any other beast comes out of that uncanny republic where husbands are grown, I will see...

he had not guessed how much of the body of a Quest was simply walking.

Never put your faith in a Prince. When you require a miracle, trust in a Witch.

You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war either.

A Bank is but a college of Fiscal Magic.

To touch a person…to sleep with a person…is to become a pioneer,” she whispered then, “a frontiersman at the edge of their private world, the strange, incomprehensible world of their interior, filled with customs you...

After all, growing up is nothing but an argument with your parents on the topic of whether or not you are grown. You scream am so am so am so from the moment you’re born,...

After all, in fairy tales, there was only one thing to do. In every story with a long sleep and a waking in it. An easy thing, a pretty thing. Standard currency.

She knew herself, how she had slowly, over years, become a cat, a wolf, a snake, anything but a girl. How she had wrung out her girlhood like death.

This is what comes of having a heart, even a very small and young one. It causes no end of trouble, and that’s the truth.

I thought: this is how you make a human being. A human being is beautiful and sick. A human being glitters and starves.

When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can’t make it run the other way again.

But cheating has always been the purview of fairies, and as we are about to enter their domain, we ought to act in accordance with local customs.

She had a highly developed sense of humor which in some lights looked a bit like a sense of justice.

For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength. Neither...

For most of us, fanfiction is a non-issue. Even for midlist writers. We will never be popular enough for people to play in our worlds with any frequency. The problem for us is getting people...

Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re...

Death is not a checkmate…it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.

I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about their Heart’s Desire—well that’s a load of rot. Hearts are idiots. They’re big and squishy and full of daft dreams. They flounce off to write poetry and moon...

Time is the only magic, he said, “And Marids swim through time like the sea. Think: if you hurt yourself, and I bandage it, and after weeks and weeks it gets well and there’s no...

Who told you you couldn’t come back when you’re grown? Was it the same person who told you grown-ups don’t cry or blush or clap their hands when they’re happy? Don’t try to say otherwise,...

When I say forever,’ Koschei whispered, ‘I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present moment, the flickering light of it, in a green field, his mouth on yours....

He quirked an eyebrow briefly, slightly, in such a way that no one afterwards might be able to safely accuse him of having done it. Sei knew the look. Names are meaningless, plosives and breath,...

Yes, yes, mistress, I shall go and accomplish your task. Only—I was not only sent to kill the Leucrotta. There is a maiden in a tower—” At this the Witch spat, again rolling her marvelous...

War is not for winning, Masha,” sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. “It is for surviving.

So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.

I know you loved both he and I, the way a mother can love two sons. And no one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.

Life is like that. Death sweeps it away. That’s what death is for. That’s why they keep telling this story. It’s the only story.

Are you the only human in the world then? And all of the rest of us monsters?

You must say things as carefully as you can. Magic is like a machine that only does exactly what you tell it to do. So you have to speak to it in a way it...

Many people in this room have an Etsy store where they create unique, unreplicable artifacts or useful items to be sold on a small scale, in a common marketplace where their friends meet and barter....

But I shall choose to remember you, and it would be nice if it went both ways. That’s how it generally goes in my country.” But does it? September thought. If a body is hurt,...

there is only this world, as it is now, and there has never been another, can never be any other.

If you are a monster, stand up.If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machineIf you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,If you kidnap maidens or dabble...

The oligarchs do not care what justice is, only what seems just. They do not care what mercy is, only what appears merciful. Thus justice and mercy will always escape them.

The goblins of the city may hold committees to divide a single potato, but the strong and the cruel still sit on the hill, and drink vodka, and wear black furs, and slurp borscht by...

I have always been delighted when told there was a piece of fanfic inspired by a book of mine floating about. I don’t read it for legal reasons, but I’m thrilled to know it’s there....

Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite...

And as we watched, the Tsar of Death lifted up his eyelids like skirts and began to dance in the streets of Leningrad.

Family is a transitive property.

Music has more rules than math or magic and it’s twice as dangerous as both or either.

…the villagers had decided that ‘practical’ meant ‘extremely magical and full of interesting objects’ and had officially subtitled themselves, Winesap: A Pracktical Towne.

Some girls have to go to college to discover what they are good at; some are born doing what they must without even truly knowing why. I felt a hole in my heart shaped like...

These are all true names. Like, when your parents call you to dinner and you don’t come and they call again but you still don’t come, and they call you by all your names together,...

Woman! Come out! I have—” She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. “I have come to rescue you,” she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.

We love WWII because the cause was so obviously just, because you can’t be a good person and say you wouldn’t fight against an evil like that. It was so black and white on our...

This tub is for washing your courage…When you are born your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will...

However wretched her origins, she chose freely to continue her crimes against us from the moment she woke to this life. It is easy to forgive beautiful women, especially when they lay a sorrowful tale...

That’s Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It’s nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night.