“Beautiful building, Phoebe said. Sam nodded. Classical Revival, he said. It was yet another display of his seemingly unending knowledge that both made her proud and made her feel very small. Maybe ...”

“Phoebe realized how very wrong shed been about this house, this family. It was far darker, more dangerous than the places shed grown up in. In the dingy little apartments her mother rented, everyth...”

“Storytelling wasn't about making things up. It was more like inviting the stories to come through her, let themselves be told.”

“She closed her eyes. Said the four most comforting words she knew: "Once upon a time." An incantation.”

“The world was full of dangers now that she was pregnant: mercury in tuna, hot tubs, beer, secondhand smoke, over-the-counter medicine. Not to mention crazy baby-abducting fairy kings.”

“Oh my God! Sam said again, his voice shaking. Ive given birth to something inhuman, Phoebe thought. A lamprey with row after row of teeth.”

“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.”

“Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes y...”

“I write for the kid in me. . . . Often when Im working on a story, Ill find myself laughing at something my characters have done, or even being surprised at where theyve taken the story. Its as if ...”

“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.”