Quotes from Catherine Fisher

Finn smiled ruefully. "I'm a Prisoner, old man. Just like you.

Chloe turned to Vetch. The poet said gently, "You see, you do have power. Words give you power, to create or destroy." His eyes flickered to Clare. "Even to forgive.

All my life I have dreamed of you.

I trust you, Jared," she whispered. "I always did. I love you, Master.

Walls have ears. Doors have eyes. Trees have voices. Beasts tell lies. Beware the rain. Beware the snow. Beware the man You think you know. -Songs of Sapphique

Only the man who has known freedom Can define his prison.

I have walked a stair of swords, I have worn a coat of scars. I have vowed with hollow words, I have lied my way to the stars -Songs of Sapphique

Underground, the stars are legend.

All my years to this moment All my roads to this wall. All my words to this silence All my pride to this fall. -Songs of Sapphique

The world is a chessboard, Madam, on which we play out our ploys and follies. You are the Queen, of course. Your moves are the strongest. For myself, I claim only to be a knight, advancing in a crooked progress. Do we move ourselves, do you think, or does a great gloved hand place on our squares

Despair is deep. An abyss that swallows dreams. A wall at the world's end. Behind it I await death. Because all our work has come to this.

I remember a story of a girl in Paradise who ate an apple once. Some wise Sapient gave it to her. Because of it she saw things differently. What had seemed gold coins were dead leaves. Rich clothes were rags of cobweb. And she saw there was a wall around the world, with a locked gate.

Where are the leaders?' Sapphique asked. 'In the fortresses,' the swan replied. 'And the poets?' 'Lost in dreams of other worlds.' 'And the craftsmen?' 'Forging machines to challenge the darkness.' 'And the Wise, who made the world?' The swan lowered its black neck sadly. 'Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers.

And what would they be scared of? There's nothing to fear in a perfect world, is there?

Because I have dreams and in those dreams I see the stars

He was her enemy, and she hated him because she could not hate him enough.

We are chained hand and foot by protocol, enslaved to a static, empty world where men and women can't read, where the scientific advances of the ages are the preserve of the rich, where artists and poets are doomed to endless repetitions and sterile reworking of past masterpieces. Nothing is new. New does not exist. Nothing changes, nothing grows, evolves, develops. Time has stopped. Progress is forbidden

He sang his last song. And the words of that have never been written down. But it was sweet and of great beauty, and those that heard it were changed utterly. Some say it was the song that moves the stars.

In the Sapient tongue he said softly, 'Tell me, Master, did you know Incarceron was tiny?' 'Is it?' Sapphique replied in the same language, his green eyes as he looked up lit by deep points of flame. 'To you, perhaps. Not to its Prisoners. Every prison is a universe for its inmates. And think, Jared Sapiens. Might not the Realm also be tiny, swinging from the watchchain of some being in a world even vaster?

Even across the dark, even across the loss, even across the emptiness, soul will speak to soul

He had wanted so hard to Escape, to find the stars. And all he had found was a new prison.

I trust you, Jared," she whispered. "I always did. I love you, Master.

Freedom is a small price to pay for survival.

Nothing has changed, or will change. So we must change it.