wonder

Killing another with slow, deliberate intent is a warping of the gifts that magic offers. It warps the mage in a manner he cannot repair. You cannot kill another slowly and not twist something within yourself, Alador. Remember this: magic is not without cost regardless of its wonder and magnificence.

He could be distracted, still, by beauty, by the wonder of a stroke of sunlight. Perhaps at such times he made himself open to wizardry-or conversely, was as warded and safe at such moments as Ynefel at its strongest. Perhaps threats simply slid past his attention and he made himself immune.

Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that has seams tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears, and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies.But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks.The drinks, people.That was me on the staircase to Chicago-Over-Chicago. Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces.But all I could think to say, between panting breaths, was, 'Yeah. Sure. They couldn__ possibly have made this an escalator.

deprived of magic, wonder wanes

When first I set eyes on The Isle of Wight Polar Bear, my world was filled, in that instant, with the magic and wonder of childhood - Suzy Davies, Author, "Snugs The Snow Bear

In a world full of oddities, it__ how you outdo yourself within your own schizophrenia of abnormalities, that determines your most interesting self.

Scarlett's nana used to say the world of Caraval was Master Legend's playground. No words were spoken that he didn't hear. Not even a whisper could escape his ears, no shadow went unseen by his eyes. No one ever saw Legend---or if they did, they didn't know it was him---but Legend saw all during Caraval.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

There's a flame of magic inside every stone & every flower, every bird that sings & every frog that croaks. There's magic in the trees & the hills & the river & the rocks, in the sea & the stars & the wind, a deep, wild magic that's as old as the world itself. It's in you too, my darling girl, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I'm sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars.

I find it incredibly amazing how at every sunset, the sky is a different shade. No cloud is ever in the same place. Each day is a new masterpiece. A new wonder. A new memory.

The feeling of loathing had as yet no permanence or strength in the dog__ soul. The newly awakened joy of life transformed every sensation into a great joke, into gaiety. Nimrod kept on barking, but the tone of it had changed imperceptibly, had become a parody of what it had been - an attempt to express the incredible wonder of that capital enterprise, life, so full of unexpected encounters, pleasures, and thrills.

I roll over on my back and clutch the book against my chest; then I chuck it on the carpet. It's too heavy to rest on me, too full of history. Not all of it is bad. Some of the memories make me smile. Some of them make me mad. But more dangerously, some of them make me wonder what my life would be like as a girlfriend, what it would be like to have a regular relationship, with all its ups and downs and awkward moments.I switch out my lamp and stare at the ceiling in the dark, taking a series of shaky breaths. I know that it__ better this way, being the one in control. The one in control calls the shots, and the one in control sets the pace.Most important of all, the one in control doesn__ get hurt.

Memory is the enemy of wonder

I remember a cartoon depicting a chimney sweep falling from the roof of a tall building and noticing on the way that a signboard had one word spelled wrong, and wondering in his headlong flight why nobody had thought of correcting it. In a sense, we all are crashing to our death from the top story of our birth to the flat stones of the churchyard and wondering with an immortal Alice in Wonderland at the patterns of the passing wall. This capacity to wonder at trifles__o matter the imminent peril__hese asides of the spirit, these footnotes in the volume of life are the highest forms of consciousness, and it is in this childishly speculative state of mind, so different from common sense and its logic, that we know the world to be good.

Dickens writes that an event, "began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself.

The limitless mind lets us dream and examine and explore. It opens us up to opportunity. We come up with a desire, a clear, fresh perspective, and a potential goal to observe from afar. And we wonder, is this it, the right choice, the best choice to follow?

The dream that wakened me pushed at the veil of consciousness but could not burst through, and I was left wondering what I had known just a moment before.

Always think and always dream. Wonder what__ around the next corner for yourself, and don__ be afraid to go there, but most of all Love. Loving yourself and the people around you is the easiest path through life. It will bring you around that corner, and places you__e never been.