Erin Bow said this quote

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can't put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.

~ Erin Bow

Plain Kate greased her boots and bandaged her feet, and soon she would walk like a Roamer born. She helped Drina with the water and the wood, and in the long, wet evenings she carved objarka burji.Plain Kate carved fast and learned slowly. She was bewildered most of the time, but Daj called her mira again, and when she asked Drina what it meant, the girl replied, It means she likes you. It means your family.Family. It could have kept her walking for a hundred miles. And she did walk far.

~ Erin Bow

Taggle, meanwhile, made himself popular, killing rats and bringing a rabbit into camp every evening, preening in the praise - silently, thank god, though at night, he recounted choice bits to Kate: Rye Baro says I am a princeling; he split the leg bone for me so that I could eat the marrow. They love me. And I'm sure they'll keep you, too.Mira, she thought, and treasured it each time she heard it, They must keep me. Family.

~ Erin Bow

Kate faced the crowd. They were just eyes and teeth to her, just spit and voices. It was a moment, even, before they became people: a man with one blind eye, another whose neck was thick with lumps and weeping wounds of scrofula. The poorest of the market.At Kate's feet, Drina. Her scarf and shirt were torn open.

~ Erin Bow