And then he tells her stories. Myths he learned from his instructor. Fantasies he created himself, inspired by bits and pieces of others read in archaic books with crackling spines.

This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it.

I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held.

I have absurdly vivid dreams.

The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.

Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case.

People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.

Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.

Tarot is just stories on cards.

Even the air feels different on Halloween, autumn-crisp and bright.

Love is fickle and fleeting," Tsukiko continues. "It is rarely a solid foundation for decisions to be made upon, in any game.

I cannot express how lordly and transfigured I felt at that moment. I was a prince of that harbor, a porpoise king - slim among the buoys and the water traffic.

Cooking is great, but the meal that has been prepared for you with love is the best.

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

And when I'm on the microphone you best to wear your sweater, Cause I'm cooler than a polar bear's toenails, Oh hell, there he go again.

When I learned how millions of children go to bed hungry, my only response was, 'What can I do to help?'

the occasional cries of a lost loon, strayed from its flock in northern migration, fill the swamp with sounds of wailing.

Osama Bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America. Our education system is doing that just fine.

The three most harmful negative emotions are anger, guilt, and fear. And anger is number one. It is also the strongest and most dangerous of all passions.

I have a naive trust in the universe - that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.

I wish I had known that it's OK to stand up for myself. That it's also OK to not be liked but to be respected, and I always want to be liked.