Kate Griffin

“...for life is magic, magic is life, the left-over life we don't even notice we're living.”

“When humans work, they frequently become unaware of their own body, their own senses, are surprised to find that their wrists ache or their backs are sore or their friend has left the building. It's as close to an out-of-body experience as can be achieved short of fifty volts, a circle of warding, a pigeon's claw cut from an albino female of purest white feathers, or a lot of mushrooms.”

“Life is magic.I knew, without having to ask, what she meant. Life was not the magic of spells or enchantments or sorcery; or, it was, but that was not the point. Life created magic as an accidental by-product, it wasn't, definite article, absolute statement, A=B, magic. Life was magic in a more mundane sense of the word; the act of living being magic all of its own.This was something we instinctively understood - it simply hadn't occurred to us that it might need explaining.”

“A small child being dragged to bed peered curiously at me as it passed, then waved. We waved back, not being entirely sure how else to respond to small creatures like that.”

“We be light, we be life, we be fire! We sing electric flame, we rumble underground wind, we dance heaven! Come be we and be free!”

“Never underestimate the ridiculous things that have been done in the name of religious-semantic obscurity.”

“Men don't ask other men if they're getting home OK, they just assume that beneath the frail, weak exterior lurks a muscle-building kung fu master fearless of ever being mugged.”

“There was almost a flicker of humanity in the man. The kind of human who pulled wings off flies as a kid, but still human.”

“Make me a shadow on the wall.”

“Whatever happened next, good or bad, it would be wonderful finding out.”

“You know how it is -- you get older, you get wiser, you start to ask yourself 'is it any use being able to summon creatures of the nether deeps when I could be watching BBC 4?”

“Where there is life, there will be magic; the one generates the other.”

“When we blaze, when we fight, when we rejoice, then I am all us, for that is all we are. When I am...afraid...we do not understand, do not like these things. We are me. It is...frightening, having to be me.”