Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children, #2)

by Seanan McGuire

A person may look at someone else’s child and see only the surface, the shiny shoes or the perfect curls. They do not see the tears and the tantrums, the late nights, the sleepless hours, the worry.

It can be easy, in the end, to forget that children are people, and that people will do what people will do, the consequences be damned.

What good was an opinion if it meant losing your place in society?

Some adventures require nothing more than a willing heart and the ability to trip over the cracks in the world.

The Moors exist in eternal twilight, in the pause between the lightning strike and the resurrection. They are a place of endless scientific experimentation, of monstrous beauty, and of terrible consequences.

Every choice feeds every choice that comes after, whether we want those choices or no.)

The trouble with denying children the freedom to be themselves—with forcing them into an idea of what they should be, not allowing them to choose their own paths—is that all too often, the one drawing the design knows nothing of the desires of their model.

Someone with sharp enough eyes might see the instant where one wounded heart begins to rot while the other starts to heal. Time marches on.

Time is the alchemy that turns compassion into love,