Quotes from Ilsa J. Bick

But all sympathetic magic has some basis in fact. The brain's wired to seek the mystical, so...- -Just because we're hardwired to want to believe doesn't make it true.-

The old man stroked a finger over a wooden charm hung around [redacted]'s chest on a leather cord. -{redacted] believed it would protect you. Whether it did is immaterial. It was something [redacted] could give, and in return, that gave [redacted] courage. It gave [redacted] faith. But all emotions are chemically mediated and may be manipulated. Every drunk, every lover, any ecstatic mystic knows that. There is no heart without the head.-

When someone is beyond help, when there is no hope, it's a choice. When we know for certain, when the dogs warn us that a child is turning , it's still a choice.- -A choice between what and what?- -What do you think? If you were turning, if you knew that you'd try to kill your friends, people you loved...are you telling me that you'd choose to become one of them ?- -Between what and what?- Where there was life, there was hope.

A word of advice, sweetheart: when you're at the brink; when it's a choice between what's safe and what might be better, even if what's best is also scary, take a chance, honey.

But every second I'm alive is one more moment I still have a chance to do something.

After that leap, she really believed she might dare anything, because no matter what, if she jumped, her father would be waiting to swim by her side, stroke for stroke, into forever. Of course, she was nine and her dad was immortal. And nothing lasts forever.

Most looked happy. I thought. Hard to tell, actually. What can you tell from a face?

You want to brawl. You want to fight. Fighting tricks you into believing you can change the past, even when the past is dead and gone and all of it ashes.