"It was the old story, he realized. Everything, everybody wanted to lay claim to a piece of your soul. And if they couldn’t have it, they made you pay for it in guilt."

"I've always had these bouts of depression; I hide them well but doesn't mean they aren't there. … I didn't have anyone around for whom I had to put on a cheerful mask. The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can actually trick yourself into feeling better."

"Jilly was one of those who preferred to know what was going on and try to do something about it, rather than pretend it wasn’t happening and hoping that, by ignoring what was wrong, it would just go away. Truth was, Jilly had long ago learned, trouble never went away. It just got worse—unless you fixed it."

"When you’re invisible, no one can see that you’re different."

"It may sound trite, but using the weapons of the enemy, no matter how good one's intentions, makes one the enemy."

"Legend and myth are what we use to describe what we don't comprehend. They are out attempts to make the impossible, possible — at least insofar as our spirits interact with the spirit of the world, or if that is too animistic for you, then let's use Jung's terminology and call it our racial subconscious. No matter the semantics, they are of a kind and it is legend and myth that binds us all together. … Through them, through their retellings, and through those version that are called religion while they are current, we are taught Truth and we attempt to understand Mystery."

"“He can be so sweet on one page, and then on the next he’s taking you on a tour through an abattoir.” “Just like life,” Bramley said."

"Blasting out of the stores speakers was the new Beastie Boys album. It sounded like a cross between heavy metal and bad rap and was about as appealing as being hit by a car. You couldn’t deny its energy, though."

"I love this world … That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was in when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that one voice can do little to alter it any longer. That doesn't stop me from doing what I can but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. It's like trying to stem a storm with one's bare hands."

"Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused — hence all the old tales of elfin Kingdoms moving further and further away from our world, or that magical beings require our faith, our belief in their existence, to survive. … That is a lie. All they require is our recognition."

"The Lost Music was his way of talking about the way he believed that old wives' tales and dance tunes and folktales were just the tangled echoes of something that's not quite of this world … something we all knew once, but have forgotten since."

"A body of work may be reviled — mostly by those who have no knowledge of its workings — and yet still carry elements of what can only be considered eternal truths."

"Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?"

"I was going through the motions of life, instead of really living, and there’s no excuse for that. It’s not something I’ll let happen to me again."

"“Don’t you ever watch TV?” Jilly shook her head. “What? And let the aliens monitor my brain waves?”"

"It's not the work or the personality of the founder of a religion that's important, but what its followers do with what they learn..."

"It was so simple that she could have wept. The mystery was only what you brought to him."

"“I don’t need to be saved,” she said softly."

"Jilly always says the family we choose for ourselves is more important than the one we were born into; that people have to earn our respect and trust, not have it handed to them simply because of genetics."

"Humanity’s whole unfortunate history is one long account of how we attack what we don’t understand, what’s strange to us."

"What Louis had said about the mystery. He has always been a reflection of what one brings to him. So if you came to him with violence or lust in your heart, that was what was reflected back. But if you came to him with goodness, without evil… Nobody was perfect, but if you really tried to be good and approached him, then he’d be good for you – wouldn’t he?"

"“Thank God you’re okay,” she murmured into Ali’s ear. “Let’s thank ourselves,” Ali said. “We’re the ones that did it.”"

"The best kinds of practical jokes are those that backfire on whoever’s playing the trick."

"It was beauty that needed preserving, whether it lay in a forest, a field, or a city street. Whether it was the workings of a plant, from seed to new growth to mulch, or the workings of some complex machine. There was room for everything in the world, so long as men remembered the beauty."

"It’s important to know what a person was. But it’s more important to know what they are now."

"They stood and listened, arms around each other for comfort, as the sound washed over them. It reverberated in the marrow of their bones, sung high and sweet, heartbreakingly mournful, quick as a jig, slow as the saddest air. Their hearts swelled with its beauty, its mystery. With all it revealed, and all that it hid."

"See, when you get down to the basics of it, everything’s just molecules vibrating. Which is what music is, what sound is—vibrations in the air. So we’re all part of that music and the worthier it is, the more voices we can add to it, the better off we all are."

"The mystery didn’t concern himself overly much with the workings of the world. He simply went where he went, did what he did, amoral as a wind that is neither good nor evil, but simply is."

"“But it’s always been that way. The leaders that men follow must always do away with the leaders that went before. ‘Great Pan is dead!’ They cried – not because he was dead, but because they wanted him to be dead.”"

"Those gospels of theirs – if you look hard enough through them, you can find a passage to forbid anything you want, and another to condone the same thing."

"If you're not ready to die, then how can you live?"

"I'm not Chinese. I thrive in interesting times."

"I can remember the first time you told me about what the Church did to the mystery. The one they called Jesus – the Green Man they hung from a tree in the desert. How St. Paul took the mystery and twisted it to make a religion of intolerance and self-torment."

"What hole did people like that crawl out of?"

"“I don’t care what he told you. He’s an asshole, plain and simple.” “Well, then how’d you get to know him?” “Even assholes come in handy sometimes. You ever try to take a shit through your nose?”"

"There is no power in the world, not that of any religion’s god or mystery, that can change people from being what they are. The world’s history – what little we have recorded of it – proves that beyond a doubt."

"“It scares me.” “But only because you don’t understand. The unknown doesn’t have to be grim.”"

"The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents."

"Feel sorry for yourself, regret the things you’ve done and the things you’ll never get to do. But just remember that you aren’t what you were, but what you are now."

"But while the tale itself, its truth, is of the utmost importance, it is the telling that allows it to be remembered or forgotten. The trueness of the telling is what makes up a storyteller’s craft."

"There's enough weirdness in the world as it is without having to give it supernatural trappings, don't you think?"

"There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale."

"Maybe he didn’t know about magic, but he knew about weird."

"It’s not that I don’t have convictions, or that I won’t defend them. I save my battles for things that have meaning instead of tilting at every mild irritation that comes my way. You can fritter away your whole life with those kinds of windmills."

"The road leading to a goal does not separate you from the destination; it is essentially a part of it."

"All of the mysteries were represented, but it was up to the reader to discover which, out of those thousands of volumes, held a kernel of truth, and which were out-and-out quackeries."

"“When all’s said and done,” Mally said, “all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it.”"

"While you live … you have a duty to life. … The fey wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them. … Otherwise they fade away."

"“What in God’s name….” “I don’t know ’bout you,” Wilson said, “but I don’t think God’s got a whole lot to do with this place.”"

"That was the trouble with not paying attention to money. It was never there when you needed it."