“I got my heart's desire, and there my troubles began.”

“In Fillory you felt the appropriate emotions when things happened. Happiness was a real, actual, achievable possibility. It came when you called. Or no, it never left you in the first place.”

“As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever ...”

“[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else...”

“A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong ...”

“Well, why would you create something that had the power to hurt You? Or any of Your creatures? Why don't You help us? Do You have any idea how much we hurt? How much we suffer?I know all things, da...”

“Ive been fighting to be who I am all my life. Whats the point of being who I am, if I cant have the person who was worth all the fighting for?”

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

“We got a fightin' side a mile wide, but we pray for peace 'cause it's mostly us that end up servin' overseas.”

“If in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human spirit.”

“It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. ...”

“Magic or nature, they were much the same thing to Magnus.”