"'I'm standing in a slaughterhouse where the cattle are begging to become hamburgers. I have a right to be jumpy.'"
— Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (Shattered Mirror)

"cold as winter, strong as stone;
she faced the darkness all alone.
a silver goddess; a reflection.
a mirage; a recollection.
no return; no turning back.
the past is gone; the future, black.
serpents gather in their nest,
and she stands above the rest.
shadows hunt; she hunts the shadow.
the moon is risen; she stands below.
she views her world through the eyes of others.
black and white; there are no colors,
as she looks down upon a shattered youth.
a shattered mirror shows a shattered truth."
— nikolas ravena

""What does a mirror look at?""
— Frank Herbert (Chapterhouse: Dune)

"The problem for me is that I can't ever really see who Gregory is, any more than I can see what a mirror by itself looks like, because he reflects whoever's around him."
— Elizabeth Chandler

"BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the wingèd sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass."
— William Butler Yeats

"It's not acting like an ass that bothers me, it's that I act like an ass while being completely convinced that I'm suave and sexy that freaks me out."
— Tim Hall

"Apollonius of Tyana: Tomorrow will be like today, and the day after tomorrow will be like the day before yesterday. I see your remaining days as a tedious collection of hours full of useless vanities. You will think no new thoughts. You will forget what little you have known. Older you will become, but not wiser. Stiffer, but not more dignified. Childless you are, and childless you will remain. Of that suppleness you once commanded in your youth, of that strange simplicity which once attracted men to you, neither endures, nor shall you recapture them.

Mrs. Cassin: You're a mean, ugly man!

Apollonius of Tyana: Mirrors are often ugly and mean. When you die, you will be buried and forgotten, and that is all. And for all the good or evil, creation or destruction, your living might have accomplished, you might just as well never have lived at all. "
— The Seven Faces of Doctor Lao

"The eternal mysteries,
following wisdom's lead,
brought forth
the human form
as their living proof.

As long as the drop
hadn't emerged from the sea,
the ocean
didn't notice
the depths of its splendor."
— Abdul-Qader Bedil

"Inside each of us resides the truth...the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the real thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion...We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look into ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us."
— Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)