because he's Will - Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

"I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none."

"When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed."

"I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read."

"We shouldn't live as if [other worlds] mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place."

"Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."