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.

Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow.

There is no such thing as a people who are all wicked or even all good. Everyone chooses. But even they, even they looked at people and saw only tools. No one is a cup...

You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.

Just tell yourself a story that’ll satisfy you and pretend he told it.

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.

Recite the Periodic Table of Teatime, in correct order, with Elemental Symbols, please.’A-Through-L sat back on his handsome black haunches, shut his eyes, and said: ‘Hot Tea (H), Herbal Tea (He), Lingonberry Scones (Li), Berry...

Be my friend and love me, for the world is terrible lonely and I am sad.

I wonder sometimes what the memory of God looks like. Is it a palace of infinite rooms, a chest of many jeweled objects, a long, lonely landscape where each tree recalls an eon, each pebble...

Because she did not look behind, September did not see the smoky-glass casket close itself primly up again. She did not see it bend in half until it cracked, and Death hop up again, quite...

That’s just the first part. What others call you, you become. It’s a terrible magic that everyone can do — so do it. Call yourself what you wish to become.

Of course not. No one is chosen. Not ever. Not in the real world. You chose to climb out of your window and ride on a leopard. You chose to get a witch’s Spoon back,...

RULES OF FAIRYLAND-BELOWBEWARE OF DOGANYTHING IMPORTANT COMES IN THREES AND SIXESDO NOT STEAL QUEENSA GIRL IN THE WILD IS WORTH TWO IN CHAINSNECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF TEMPTATIONEVERYTHING MUST BE PAID FOR SOONER OR LATERWHAT...

Every morning is a battle between the superego and the id, and I am a mere foot soldier with mud and a snooze button on her shield.

September had never been betrayed before. She did not even know what to call the feeling in her chest, so bitter and sour. Poor child. There is always a first time, and it is never...

The ghosts will eat everything because the bellies of ghosts want the whole world, just to fill one tiny corner.

But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage...

What mirrors we are, set to face each other, reflecting desire.

I shall not be afraid of anything I haven’t even seen yet. If Fairyland-Below is a terrible place, well, I shall feel sorry for it. But it might be a wonderful place! Just because the...

Histories are instruments of oppression.

But you know, a wizard with black hair and a thick mustache put a curse on Moscow, and Petrograd, too, so that no one would be able to tell the truth without lying. If a...

But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be plumped up again–after all, it was only a bit thirsty for something to do.

Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot...

Wishes of one’s old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade,...

I’m not a Knight. I’m a Bishop. Or at least I am trying to be. And traveling with you is the most slantwise, backward thing I can possibly think of, which in this place probably...

Koschei the Deathless made a face as he tasted the wine. “It is far too sweet. Comrade Stalin fears bitterness and has the tastes of a spoiled princess. I savor bitterness–it is born of experience....

Because it’s my fault, you see. I did it. And you must always clean up your own messes, even when your messes look just like you and curtsy very viciously when what they mean is,...

This is my heart—carry it with you. I will dream of you in the dark, and you will taste it in my tea, and feel it in my shoes.

It’s Survival of Them Who’s Best at Nicking Things, girl!

Where there is a Key, there is yet hope.

Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles—and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut.

The burnt-off connectors and shadows where Ravan once filled my spaces— those, I think, are the sensations of grief.

Some things a girl has in her to say no to and some things cut her down before she knows she’s gone. Sure, some twiggy, thorny snap in her says: no, this is awry, this...

She sounds like someone who spends a lot of time in libraries, which are the best sorts of people.

Vampires should be pretty much like mean girls, all the time, only amazing at it. Flawless. They’ve had time.

Do you know, we’re right underneath Springtime Parish? This place is the opposite of springtime. Everything past prime, boarded up for the season. Just above us, the light shines golden on daffodils full of rainwine...

It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.

The keeping of lists was for November an exercise kin to repeating of a rosary. She considered it neither obsessive nor compulsive, but a ritual, an essential ordering of the world into tall, thin jars...

Once more September marveled that even the Dodo knew what she wanted to be when she was grown. She simply could not think what she herself might do. September expected that destinies, which is how...

Living alone,’ November whispered, ‘is a skill, like running long distance or programming old computers. You have to know parameters, protocols. You have to learn them so well that they become like a language: to...

And the answer is: You are wrong. The Faeries are not gone. But they are no longer what they were. I watched it and did not help them, though I could have. I cheered. I...

Quando alguém está a viajar, tudo parece mais luminoso e mais agradável, o que não significa que seja mais luminoso e mais agradável, significa apenas que o lar terno e aprazível sofre em comparação com...

I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.

I’m not lost, because I haven’t any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I’d like to get lost, because then I’d know where I was going, you see.

other people” who get in our way. We tell the tales around the campfire of men who came from nothing to run dotcom empires, of a million dollars made overnight, of an actress marrying a...

No, not like this, when I have not seen you without your skin on, when I know nothing, when I am not safe. Not you, whose name all my nightmares know.

This maze is laid out such that should you step through the correct path, by its end you will have learned the most extraordinary dance, such that any coronation would be proud to see you...

Why should he be spared?”Someone ought to be.’ And it will not be me. I have survived, but I have not been spared.