“The morning was bright and propitious. Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed to cherish unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. (“The Legend Of Monte Del Diablo”).”

“Ah, I do so love this charmingly rustic, elvin kingdom!-Baozhai”

“I loved getting my M. B. A., and I really enjoyed being an accountant and financial analyst before I quit my day job twenty-five years ago to write full time. I just liked writing more…plus, I knew even then that as a full-time writer, I’d get plenty of chances to do business-type stuff, while as an accountant, I probably wouldn’t get a lot of opportunities to write about dragons.”

“We can face any dragons, because we know Your plans for us. They’re good plans. Better than our own.”

“I have reconciled myself to our new lives. Our new fate, as Talis would say. As if fate were a merging, shifting thing. As if it were controlled by something other than ourselves.”

“Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain;If we perish in the seeking, why, how small a thing is death!”

“The townspeople took the prince for deadWhen he never returned with the dragon’s headWhen with her, he stayedShe thought he’d be too afraidBut he loved her too much instead.”

“He needed no one. For to trust was to be betrayed.”

“Breathing in the scent of his hair, I realized I’d needed him my whole life, before we even met. First, his music and the way he taught me through books and recordings. Then, he saved my life and refused to abandon me no matter how much I deserved it.”

“Here is a story that’s stranger than strange. Before we begin you may want to arrange:a blanket, a cushion, a comfortable seat,and maybe some cocoa and something to eat.I’ll warn you, of course, before we commence, my story is eerie and full of suspense, brimming with danger and narrow escapes, and creatures of many remarkable shapes.Dragons and ogres and gorgons and more, and creatures you’ve not even heard of before. And faraway places? There’s plenty of those! (And menacing villains to tingle your toes.)So ready your mettle and steady your heart. It’s time for my story’s mysterious start…”

“Fairytales by nature only talk about the victors. The survivors. Nobody speaks about what happens to those who failed, except in the abstract: as cautionary tales to guide others onto the path to success. How many brave knights fell to the dragon before he was slayed by the noble prince? How many children burned to a crisp and eaten before the wicked witch received her due? These stories are lost, but the lesson behind them is not: it is not enough to be merely pure and good.”

“She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night.”

“Imagine a land where people are afraid of dragons. It is a reasonable fear: dragons possess a number of qualities that make being afraid of them a very commendable response. Things like their terrible size, their ability to spout fire, or to crack boulders into splinters with their massive talons. In fact, the only terrifying quality that dragons do not possess is that of existence.Now, the people of this land know about dragons because their leaders have warned them about them. They tell stories about cruel dragons with razor teeth and fiery breath. They recount legends of dragons hunting by night on silent wings. In short, the leaders make sure that the people believe in all the qualities of dragons, including that key quality of existence. And then they control the people — when they need to — with their fear of dragons. The people pay a dragon-slaying tax … everyone stays indoors after dark to avoid being snatched by swooping claws … and nobody ever strays out of bounds for fear of being eaten well and truly up.Perhaps somebody will wonder if dragons aren’t, after all, fictitious because — despite their size — nobody seems to have actually seen one. And so it is necessary from time to time to provide evidence: a burnt tree or two, a splintered rock, the mysterious absence of a villager. The population is controlled by the dragons in its collective mind. It’s contrived superstition, and it is possible because the people do not know enough about the way the world works to know that dragons do not exist.”

“My task is set before me, girl My mission clear and true There’ll be black knights and dragons, girl But I will always come for you…”