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.

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,...

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...

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...

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.

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....