"Some things are changeless. People love, and die, they dream, destroy, despair, go mad. They fulfill their destinies, live out the course of their lives. We fulfill our function, as they fulfill theirs... that will not change."

"In her world there are so many windows. Each opening shows her an existence that's fallen to her—some only for moments, others for lifetimes."

"Change. Change. Change. Change... change. Change. Chaaaange. When you say words a lot they don't mean anything. Or maybe they don't mean anything anyway, and we just think they do."

"He prays as he walks (cursing his one weak leg the while), prays to Allah (who made all things) that somewhere, in the darkness of dreams, abides the other Baghdad (that can never die), and the other egg of the Phoenix. But Allah alone knows all."

"You have called me here, Haroun. It is unwise to summon what you cannot dismiss."

"There was also in that room the Other Egg of the Phoenix. (For the Phoenix when its time comes to die lays two eggs, one black, one white: From the white egg hatches the Phoenix-bird itself, when its time is come, but what hatches from the black egg no one knows.)"

"Abel, the younger brother, had lots of sheep, and he had given the land's creator a sheep as present. Cain, who was the older, grew fruit and vegetables, and he'd given the land's creator some of them. But the creator liked the sheep best, because it was all funny and fluffy and white—" "Because it was warm, steaming meat. It was a bleeding sacrifice, you bloody idiot!"

"Thou hast made the Furies cry, Orpheus. They will never forgive you for that."

"I don't need to know the future. When the future's over, then it's me..."

"Herakles was full of it. He just got dead drunk for a couple of weeks in Phrygia and told everyone he'd been to the land of the dead."

"You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live."

"There are really patterns. It was a revelation, of a kind. Dreams and sand and stories. Deserts and cities and time."

"You look terrible. White as the man in the moon. Are you always that pale?" "That depends on who's watching."

"Forewarned is seldom forearmed. Not even in the shifting zones."

"Any view of things that is not strange is false."

"Do you know how long it's been since I mislaid a book? Well, let's just say the continents weren't in their current shapes, not that that means anything to you."

"You shouldn't trust the storyteller; only trust the story."

"Listen, blood of my blood. Although I'm a hard man to anger, and I love you deeply, if you interrupt me again so help me I'll rip out your throat with my teeth."

"Of course you don't believe in fairies. You're fifteen. You think I believed in fairies at fifteen? Took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe. Anyway, he wasn't a fairy. He was a librarian. All right?"

"The young man's mother had died bringing him into the world; she gave him life, a small wooden finger-ring, and the name Vassily. There have been worse legacies."

"I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear." "Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out."

"I've met a lot of kings, and emperors and heads of state in my time, Joshua. I've met them all. And you know something? I think I liked you best."

"They say that the world rests on the backs of 36 living saints—36 unselfish men and women. Because of them the world continues to exist. They are the secret kings and queens of this world."

"Desire? You disappoint me. This evening's display: bringing back a dead man to offer Norton the pleasures of the world. It was not very subtle."

"His madness... his madness keeps him sane." "And do you think he is the only one, my sister?"

"I hesitate to tell you this, Sam, but there are certain individuals who have accused me of. Mm. Well, being mad." "You... shock me, Your Majesty."

"Dreams. What are dreams? Dreams are nothing, my brother." "Dreams are 'nothing', sister? Without dreams, there could be no despair."

"We write our names in the sand; and then the waves roll in and wash them away."

"From that Time on, the Song of Orpheus has always hovered at the Edge of my Perception; a Melody I can never fully recapture, try howsoever I will. And do not doubt that there are many in Authority to whom I would sing it, if 'twere within my Power."

"Will you kill all the poets, then, St. Just? Will you kill all the dreamers?"

"Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly."

"It is sometimes a mistake to climb, it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt."

"And if there's a moral there, I don't know what it is, save maybe that we should take our goodbyes whenever we can, and that's all."

"It's like, that people... well, that everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world—no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."

"She shouldn't mess with the moon. That's dangerous."

"I was one of seventeen children. We were all named Wilkinson—I suppose it was roughest on the girls, but we all got used to it in the end. I blame the parents, really. ... It was just when they found a name they liked, they stuck with it."

"Where others ask timorously, Thessalian, your kind commanded, directed, ordered. It galled us. But the others are dust now, and less than dust. And one day you, in your turn, will join them. And then our compact will be over, and you will be ours, as they are."

"There are two ways into another's dreams. We can go through the dream king; or we can go by the moon's road. But the dream king has little time for you women, and even less for my kind; while the moon is ever ours. It's time to draw down the moon."

"I am not afraid. O Princess Barbara, protect me now as I have protected you in days long past. O Murphy watch over me. I will not be afraid."

"This is a bright place, filled with frightened people, and fast hard things that hurt and wound. No matter. I swore I would remain by her side forever, and until death divided us. I must walk until once more we are reunited."

"There will be no more wanton violence; no further suffering, inflicted without reason or explanation. We will hurt you. And we are not sorry. But we do not do it to punish you. We do it to redeem you. Because afterward, you'll be a better person... and because we love you. One day, you'll thank us for it." "But... you don't understand... that makes it worse. That makes it so much worse..."

"I don't want to talk to her, Matthew. I doubt that she wants to talk to me. But still... we will talk."

"The Gods of Nippon are very powerful. We are no longer worshiped as once we were, but we have adapted. Times have changed, and we have changed with them. We are expanding—assimilating other pantheons, later gods, new altars and icons. Marilyn Monroe is ours now, as are King Kong and Lady Liberty."

"I'm the amazing Cain. If you enjoyed our show, tell your friends. If you didn't, I trust you get throat cancer and die without ever again uttering another word. Goodnight."

"Even when it's empty, thought Charles Rowland, you're never alone in a school. It belong to all those dead people. All the other kids. The ones that sat at your desk, or slept in your bed, or ran down the corridors a hundred years ago. They never go away."

"I have the honor to be the personal slave of Lord Kilderkin, a manifestation of Order, here incarnated for us in the form of this cardboard box."

"I could never again be an angel... innocence, once lost, can never be regained."

"They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No. They belong to themselves... they just hate to face up to it."

"Would the Lord of Hell destroy his realm? Would the Lord of Hell ever free the souls held in torment? Would the Lord of Hell expel the never-born? Would the Lord of Hell abandon the war with Heaven?" "The Lord of Hell will do what he damn well likes."

"I am Breschau of Livonia. I ripped out the tongues of those who spoke against me, and cut the unborn babes from the wombs of my enemies' women, that they would not become warriors to rise against me. I took my mother by force, and I strangled my sister when she would not consent to my advances. Soon my name was whispered in the night by mothers to terrify their babes into obedience. I am Breschau who bathed in the blood of children. I am Breschau who forced the true prophets of the Lord to dance upon plates of hot iron, under which fires were burning, and I laughed as they danced. I am Breschau and when my mistress was unfaithful to me, I cut the nose from her face and wore it about my neck. As for the woman, I had her sewn to her lover, and, skin to skin, I left them in the desert to be eaten by ravens, and I laughed as I heard them scream. I am Breschau, and this is my punishment."