It's easy to believe in magic when you're young. Anything you couldn't explain was magic then. It didn't matter if it was science or a fairy tale. El… - Charles de Lint

"The best change you can make is to hold up a mirror so that people can look into it and change themselves. That's the only way a person can be changed."
By looking into yourself," Zia said. "Even if you have to look into a mirror that's outside yourself to do it."
"And you know," Maida added. "That mirror can be a story you hear, or just someone else's eyes. Anything that reflects back so you can see yourself in it.

The trouble with magic is that it never really lets go. If you work one magic to undo another, you might end up with a bigger problem than you had in the first place.

The thing to remember when you're writing is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader.