"It was a lie, what lesser men taught, that immortality must lead to tedium. For those unwilling to learn, those entirely wrapped in the mummy-bands of self, that might be true. In time one tired of the world within, grew morose, looked to death as relief and release. But for the real scholar? Each day of existence was adventure, mystery, delight. The learning never ceased. Death gained a renewed measure of terror as realization grew that all the richness and the joy of life would indeed have an end."

"Like many a freshman with dangerous leanings toward the Humanities, Noel circled the topic of choosing a major cautiously, occasionally poking it with a stick to see which way it lunged and which way he should jump to avoid it."

"At least when you’re dead, you can stop worrying about your health."

"Innocence is only a matter of not being able to believe in a possibility you can’t imagine."

"Like all grandmothers, she wouldn’t mind if the world ended so long as everyone cleaned his plate first."

"It is more comfortable for us to pretend that we are a kindly race, to let bygones be bygone, to let the dust of history mingle with the ashes of the dead and to sweep both under the same rug."

"Gratitude and love. He wasn’t the only one who lived with the pretty lie that one must necessarily lead to the other."

"Who obeyed the commands of ghosts except madmen?"

"Money is easier to manipulate than men, but then it manipulates them for you."

"Beautiful. She had been born with an appreciation for beauty. Mortals who imagined that they shared that same appreciation knew nothing. In them, the taste had to be learned, cultivated, forced into being. If it had been a natural part of their souls, they never would have destroyed so much loveliness with their repetitive stupidities."

"The women treated you like a kid until you showed them you could put down a man’s stack of cash. Enough bills on the table and you could wear a Sesame Street bib and they wouldn’t care."

"Melisan frowned and informed her leader that politics was the answer to every demon’s fondest dreams. Politics, she said, meant less work for Mother. It covered all the bases when it came to the Seven Top Deadly Sins. “You get a minor political conflict, like, say, an argument over candidates at a cocktail party,” said Melisan, who only knew about such gatherings from Murakh, “and right away you generate a whole room full of Wrath. Then you move on to elections, and you get the bunch that won’t vote at all because they don’t like either candidate and besides, they figure one vote’s not important.” “Ahhh,” sighed Horgist, eyes moist with yearning. “Sloth!” “Exactly, my love. Then someone wins the election, and you’ve got the ones who voted for him swelled with pride and the ones who didn’t consumed with Envy. Avarice, Lechery, and Gluttony come after he’s in office, and that’s just what happens in a minor political situation! When you’ve got Avarice and Gluttony working on the grand, international scale, you’ve got the way paved for all-out war, and when what they call National Pride shows up, you’ve got guaranteed Gehenna.”"

"Bravery cannot be taught, but duty can."

"Gods do not explain their cruelties."

"Elena had never managed to develop any patience for smartasses. Her first impulse was still to kick them right where they were smartest."

"“This—this guy is dead now, right?” Marguerite shrugged. “Death is such a fragile thing. Who knows? I’ve heard rumors, but you can’t depend on anything these days. The greatest wizards of antiquity turn up with less warning than Hamptons houseguests.”"

"My lady, I shudder to meet so much blind enthusiasm in one soul. It is dangerous when bravado envelops bravery."

"It was an edifice that combined high tech and low taste to an astonishing degree."

"Three there are and three there be, Each will gain the rest for thee: Flesh to flesh in burning hold; Song of silver, chink of gold; Power to make others bend. None the Answer in the end."

"“You mean…I’m not a coward after all?” “Rest easy. You’re just a neurotic like the rest of us.”"

"Anything sounds legitimate in Latin."

"They’re never going to agree on one damned thing. You can’t make reasonable human beings out of committee members."

"“How can you stand against magic?” the Welsh girl cried. Sandy smiled. “You forget,” she said. “I’m a lawyer.”"

"Even his tie—that most treacherous of sartorial shoals, that scrap of fabric upon which many an otherwise sane man lavishes the worst lunacies of misguided self-expression and is thereby wrecked, fashionably speaking—even that was a demure navy-and-burgundy silk rep, with a faint stripe of yellow as discreet as the finest assassin."

"Parricide can be hard to explain to the neighbors."

"Only a corpse could have sounded more bored."

"“I did warn you.” “When cats listen to humans, I’ll listen to cats,” Sandy replied lightly."

"Forgive me for a lie, but the dead fight with the weapons they have."

"She had majored in Philosophy at Vassar. It wasn’t the sort of thing one got over easily."

"All acts leave imprints of themselves on the worlds of being, sweet lady. Our loving will leave its little mark, and our quarrel. But nothing leaves so strong a print as evil, and the ghosts of great evils return time after time to reenact their tragedies."

"But we had to go believe a prophecy instead of our own eyes, elf! There’s no good ever came of listening to wizards. Half of them are crazy and the other half are so old they sound crazy. And we listened! We’re the craziest of the lot."

"No one missed the news in his house. Papi insisted on that. He hated ignorance, and book-ignorance was only one kind. The kid had to know that the world wasn’t nothing but half-hour time slots where everyone gets rich and happy between the commercials."

"Whoever you are, you’re too weird even for New York, and that’s saying something."

"She had seen too much not to realize that there are some worlds where a sword is not a sword, and where the power of magic breathes fate into a blade."

"And the things mortals have taught me! They hate in the name of a god of love! They make war in the name of peace! They fancy themselves in the lords of creation because they are able to destroy it all!"

"To shrug was in effect his philosophy of life. Either you had the answer to a problem or you didn’t. If you did, bueno, you did. If you didn’t, you shrugged and waited to see if someone would come up with the answer for you."

"She is as shallow as a leaf holding rainwater."

"Sanchi could use money. It was the green and golden bridge to everything he wanted."

"“A mistake, however small,” said the dead wizard, “can be more deadly than a sword.”"

"She hadn’t been alive very long, but already she had an extensive list of things she hated, and topping it was being told what to do."

"“I won’t do it,” said Barti. “Then we’ll kill you,” replied Aliska, who had grasped the fundamentals of religious debate pretty quickly."

"Better a live whore than a dead virgin!"

"Dignity and self-assurance are everything to a woman, especially a naked one."

"For magic wears a thousand masks, but love is magic of its own and wears a myriad more."

"I knew the Cardinal Rule of Experiments from Master Urion’s house: The wise mage never tampers with the order of things unless his circumstances are such that the worst possible result of the experiment will be no more disastrous than not performing the experiment at all."

"If we could all pick our fathers there might be ten men on earth who would have families."

"Children, the gods call us when they choose, but not even the priests are eager to answer."

"That is the real paradox you mortals pose: the faith in love you sometimes keep for no reason anyone can see."