I could see how you could do extreme things for the person you loved. Adam One said that when you loved a person, that love might not always get returned the way you wanted, but it was a good thing anyway because love went out all around you like an energy wave, and a creature you didn't know would be helped by it.

You can forget who you are if you're alone too much.

What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.

It can be tiring knowing so many people with hidden depths,” Joe said. “Some days, shallow is good.

So you fell out of the sky, too?" the Little Prince asked the pilot who tells the story, and I thought yes, I'd fallen out of the sky, too, but there was no possible testimony of my fall, there was no black box that anybody could consult, nor was there any black box of Ricardo Laverde's fall, human lives don't have these technological luxuries to fall back on.

In the darkness of the bedroom I thought of that, although thinking in the darkness is not advisable: things seem bigger or more serious in the darkness, illnesses more destructive, the presence of evil closer, indifference more intense, solitude more profound.

Toast was a pointless invention from the Dark Ages. Toast was an implement of torture that caused all those subjected to it to regurgitate in verbal form the sins and crimes of their past lives. Toast was a ritual item devoured by fetishists in the belief that it would enhance their kinetic and sexual powers. Toast cannot be explained by any rational means.

When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

He doesn't know which is worse, a past he can't regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo.

What are you running from?"

That put a damper on the fluttering lashes. "Columbia House Music Club," I said, recovering my snarkiness quickly. "Oh, sure, they say they'll sell you six CDs for a penny, but they'll hunt you down like the hounds of hell if you miss the payments.”

“A very magnanimous statement, Gideon,” said Magnus.
“I’m Gabriel.”
Magnus waved a hand. “All Lightwoods look the same to me.”

You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.

I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to.

Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you. You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.

You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.

When there aren’t any smart decisions, I suppose you just have to pick the stupid decision you like best.

I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.

People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up.

“Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?"

"They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”

One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.