“A year of ending and beginning, a year of loss and finding...and all of you were with me through the storm. I drink your health, your wealth, your fortune for long years to come, and I hope for man...”

“There was a certain wisdom in doing little, when one was obliged to act in ignorance.”

“He knew that he wielded magic as well as iron, and yet looked away from it, and made himself fables to explain his own presence in the world, and sought gods who might be more powerful than himself...”

“Were the seeds of next things always there, in the circle of the year, and was that how the world worked its miracles?”

“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.”

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

“[I]sn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?”

“I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”