“It’s always better to accomplish something than nothing, but coming of age is about more than learning who you are inside: it’s as much about who you are in relation to others – and who you want to be”

“Sometimes it is no great shame to give in, even to despair, provided that it is just for a little while. Sometimes a little surrender is good for the soul.”

“When you hunt wisely, there is no need to run afterwards.”

“Where books had been a comfort before, they became a necessity, old books best of all: thick heavy tomes with stories that spread and twisted through other worlds, where he could walk like a ghost in the footsteps of other lives.”

“It’s always better to accomplish something than nothing, but coming of age is about more than learning who you are inside: it’s as much about who you are in relation to others – and who you want to be”

“...there was something in the texture of the weave that felt happy: theecho of a memory so far down in his soul it was all emotion, aburst of colour and warmth, adrift from time and place.”