The Lost Gate Quotes
"Danny North grew up surrounded by fairies, ghosts, talking animals, living stones, walking trees, and gods who called up wind and brought down rain, made fire from air and drew iron out of the depths of the earth as easily as ordinary people might draw up water from a well."
"To the dozens and dozens of North cousins, 'town' was a distant thing, like 'ocean' and 'space' and 'government.'"
"School was something the children endured in the mornings, so they could spend the afternoons learning how to create the things that commoners called fairies, ghosts, golems, trolls, werewolves, and other such miracles that were the heritage of the North family."
"Why else do we have so many weaklings who can’t send their outself more than a hundred yards?"
"In the outside world, Danny would have been doing ninth grade work, two years ahead of his age."
"So in this idyllic world of fairies and ghosts, gods and talking animals, Danny was a profoundly solitary child."
"He knew everybody; everybody was kin to him. But he had been made ashamed of everything he did well, and even more ashamed of everything he could not do."
"The world would be better if there had never been such gods as these."
"We have to import their machines to air-condition our homes. We tie in to their internet to get our news and send emails to the trusted rovers the Family sends out into the world."
"How dare we feel superior? None of these things are in our power."
"But if Danny tried to leave, all the Family secrets would be at risk."
"I am by nature one of them. Without affinities or powers. Living by the labor of their hands or the words of their mouth."
"He owed them nothing. He was not one of them. He did not accept their power over him. He would not let them kill him if he could avoid it."
"The only trouble was, he didn’t actually know how to use his power."
"Everything he does from now on will be viewed with suspicion."
"Maybe there was a camaraderie among warriors, now that the war was over. Or maybe laughter was how they pushed painful memories out of their minds. Perhaps laughter was the only way they could keep from killing each other."
"I wasn’t clever, I just didn’t know I had the knack of it."
"The whole place was a fantasy of Christmas. Everything had holly or Santa faces or elves on it; everything was red and green."
"Peril is everywhere, but there are also allies in places least expected. Sometimes even the people who know you’re lying will help you and trust you a little."
"Don’t be greedy, he told himself. The detective won’t believe the story if I overload the cart—or put in any toys."
"It was getting so Danny was almost disappointed to remember that she didn’t exist, and no one would ever come to pay for anything he took."
"It was such a relief to know that he could bring the cart with him."
"And that decision shaped the next few years of his life."
"I’m not," said Danny. "Never been out of the homeplace. Farm."
"The god of these Americans wasn’t one of the old pantheons... The god was the people themselves."
"What he closed, I’ll open. What he broke, I’ll fix. What he hid, I’ll find."
"Truth is simple and elegant. That’s how you know it when you see it."
"Trust me until I have from you the thing I want."
"Animals are—they’re looked after, they—if one of us did something like that, Grandpa Gyish would have him killed. Great-uncle Zog would do it himself."
"Lighten up," said Eric. "You can put your hands all over me."
"I’m just six inches away from being a human being."
"You’re about ready to explode," said Eric. "She was just teasing you, don’t you get it? Because you’re so young and a virgin."
"I think that means he’s done it a lot," said Eric. "But she broke up with him."
"It’s a crime," said Ced. "It’s abuse. Worse than abuse, it’s murder."
"Why didn’t he just give them a printout of Google Maps directions to the compound while he was at it?"
"I’d worry more about Ced than me," said Lana. "Ced’s gay, you know. That’s the only reason I married him."
"I think their sappy little bodies deserve to suffer."
"I’m enjoying this sandwich because I already did all that I could. And because I was hungry—I was."
"I’m glad the women and the girl are doing fine," said Danny. "That’s all I care about."
"You’re very good at concealing when you’re lying. You’re a natural con man, which isn’t actually a surprise."
"It’s nice to know you’re not alone in the world, isn’t it?"
"It’s like punching a hole in the air," said Danny. "I’m in the house, I punch a little hole, I reach through it and hand the stuff to you wherever you are."
"Sounds too convenient to be true," Eric shook his head.
"If you’ll notice where we are," said Danny, "nobody can see us except from that house, and nobody’s there right now."
"Your magic trick, you get to decide," Eric shrugged.
"Being young and stupid doesn’t excuse anything. If you get them killed or even hurt, I’ll kill you myself. Get it?" Stone expressed firmly.
"I’m a Westilian," said Danny scornfully. "Nobody matters as much as me."
"I’m not a vagrant," said Danny. "I’m here as a student."
"Heavens no," said Leslie. "We’ve hardly started to get to know you."
"I didn’t kill anybody," said Danny. "Even though he tried to kill me and my friend. I figured I could always get away, so why bother?"
"Everybody on Earth stays alive day to day solely because everyone they meet decides, every single day, not to kill them."
"Finding your outself. Making clants. Love and serve the source of your strength."
"Everyone has an outself, Danny. Even the most commonplace drowther, whether he knows how to set it loose or rein it in."
"You could not make a gate without an outself. Gates are your clants, you see."
"That’s like saying that gravity makes things fall. Naming it doesn’t mean you understand it or can affect it in any way."
"I want you working hard and concentrating on something besides your gatemaking."
"The only way to know if they’re workable is to try to make them fail. If we fail to fail, then maybe we’re on the right track."
"Serve spacetime, and let’s work on learning how to close your own gates."
"How do you know jokes aren’t how spacetime is loved and served? I mean, spacetime is the causal universe, right?"
"Language gives us the illusion that we’re talking about reality, but in fact we can say false statements as easily as true ones, and get people to act on them as if we had changed reality."
"I’m not going to spy on them. But if they asked me to spy on someone else, I would do it in a second, because I would trust their judgment that it was useful and necessary to do so."
"Just because he had the power of a gatemage, or at least some of it, Danny didn’t think it was necessarily right for him to use it."
"Such were the fantasies that filled his mind as he ran, as he did his chores."
"Drowthers shouldn’t sacrifice their privacy just because he happened to have a little power that gave him access to anything, anywhere."
"Wouldn’t it be nice to actually know a girl who wasn’t his cousin?"
"Sorry," he said, getting up. "You seemed to come out of nowhere."
"If you want a gate to be private," she said, "then hide it or close it."
"You can if you’re powerful enough. But I’m more than a Finder. I think I’m a Keyfriend!"
"I didn’t know you could hide a gate from a Finder."
"Here’s what I know. I jumped through a half-dozen of your gates in the DC area, as soon as I saw the first one and realized what it was."
"Do you think I’d stay out of people’s houses, if I could make gates?"
"I have no plans," said Veevee, "so I may take you up on that, depending on the freshness of the hay."
"You are the most important person in the world to me!"
"No, you’re still alive because of dumb luck. You are so careless, despite trying to be careful."
"Nobody loves squirrels! They’re too clever, you can’t stop them from stealing!"
"Using my grandfather’s name to force me out of my own kitchen," she murmured. "Shame on you."
"I didn’t say his name," whispered Wad. "Because I don’t know it."
"You invoked his memory and made me stop ranting and throwing things, and I wanted to rant and throw things!"
"Then next time throw at me," said Wad. "I won’t mind."
"Presumptuous little squirrel. Nobody loves squirrels! They’re too clever, you can’t stop them from stealing!"
"Whoever it is wants the Queen dead so that her baby will never be born, so that Anonoei’s little halfway bastard boys can take the place of the rightful heir who died unborn."
"I barely care about myself. But I’d never forgive them forcing me to die with a traitor’s and assassin’s shame on me, when I don’t deserve either name!"
"You’re the only faithful man or boy in Nassassa."
"Faithful to my Queen, and to the boy or girl, half mine, growing inside her womb."
"His prisoners would quickly learn to be glad of the water and the scraps."
"Only fear will keep them from threatening my child when they grow older."
"Are we not all your prisoners here, and have you no compassion for our imprisonment, either?"
"How long can you behave monstrously before you become a monster?"
"Humans, even great mages, get used to anything."
"I want to live by drowther rules. I’m doing it better than a lot of drowthers."
"A girl without magery or beauty, with no weapon but her heart, has tamed the savage seamage."
"I don’t like being timed. Takes all the fun out of it."
"Everybody always has an attitude, even if it’s only apathy."
"What’s the point of running with somebody, if you end up by yourself?"
"It’s too hot. It’s still summer. You can’t make a kid run this hill five times in hot weather right after eating lunch."
"Just studying Laurette’s cleavage. She’s still averaging two, but I keep hoping for changes."
"It’s not their fault, or mine either. They had no words to explain it."
"You don’t actually think there are any planets that close to the surface of the Earth, do you?"
"The Great Gates make a difference in degree, not in kind."
"For what it’s worth," said Hermia, "we’re not really Greek. We were never Greek. We’re Pelasgians. We were the gods of the Illyrians, the Albanians, the Danae. When the Dorians and Ionians came, we wiped out their Families and they worshiped us. But we’re not Greek."