- Quentin Coldwater: The thing that attacked us; that ripped the Dean's eyes out, seems like it might be from Fillory.
- Margo Hanson: Jesus. That is not tonally consistent with the books.
- Quentin Coldwater: No, it's not. And that - I just - I - I find that devastating.
- Margo Hanson: Were you planning a trip there?
- Quentin Coldwater: No.
- Margo Hanson: Really. Because, otherwise, you're literally torturing yourself over a fairy tale. Quentin, you passed the first trial. You live to fight another day. Drink up. Go to the party. Find someone to bang. Celebrate the world you're in, dummy.
- Margo Hanson: [Wearing robe and mask] Oh, Manon! We offer up this virgin. Flesh and blood.
- Quentin Coldwater: Jesus, I'm not a virgin.
- Margo Hanson: [Takes mask off] Huh. Life is full of surprises.
- Quentin Coldwater: We have to cheat. They want us to. We've been Kobayashi Maru'd.
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: Whatever that means, yes!
- Surendra: No. No way.
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: You're an idiot. We're cheating.
- Quentin Coldwater: You ever want something so badly and then realize that it's nothing like what you thought? And maybe that you are stupid for ever actually even wanting it.
- Margo Hanson: Every guy I've ever slept with.
- Alice Quinn: I'm assuming you didn't travel to Fillory on some planned vacation.
- [Penny is silent]
- Alice Quinn: So you don't know how to control it yet. Then educate yourself. Nobody knows more about Fillory than Quentin. What if you end up back there again?
- Kady Orloff-Diaz: She makes a point.
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: Okay, fanboy. Tell me what it says in the books about not getting my face eaten by The Beast.
- Quentin Coldwater: The Beast isn't in the books.
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: How's that, if I was right there staring him in the face?
- Quentin Coldwater: The Chatwins, they mostly get chased around by this Time Witch, the Watcher Woman. She plants clocks in trees... Ah, it's sort of surrealist.
- Kady Orloff-Diaz: Okay, I take it back. This is a waste of your time.
- Surendra: How much time do we have left?
- Quentin Coldwater: I don't know. Who knows how to read an hourglass?
- Margo Hanson: [about a wild horse] Bring him to me.
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: Why?
- Margo Hanson: I want to get my Catherine the Great on.
- [Penny stares blankly]
- Margo Hanson: Google it. Totally hilarious.
- Quentin Coldwater: You were in Fillory!
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: Stop! Okay? Fillory is just a-...
- Quentin Coldwater: Did you see any animals? Did they talk to you?
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: I was at some dungeon, you Hobbit-loving freak! What's wrong with you?
- Quentin Coldwater: ...There are no Hobbits in Fillory.
- William 'Penny' Adiyodi: [after being put in teams for The Trials] Say one word about Fillory and I'll kill you. Don't get me kicked out.
- Quentin Coldwater: Well, then we'd finally be even.
- Surendra: Now I get it.
- Quentin Coldwater: Get what?
- Surendra: Why our team name is "Horny Chupacabras".
- Quentin Coldwater: [stuttering] I'm not a... I don't even know what a "chupacabra" is.
- Surendra: It's a spine-covered goat-sucking primate indigenous to Mexico. I can already see we are immensely handicapped by your presence.
- Eliot Waugh: In 18th century England, a secret society known as "The Brethren" encrypted hundreds of spells to hide them from the church. You may open your blue books. Each team must decode and cast their spell by 9:00 a. m. Screw up, and it's back to page one. FYI, this test is pretty much impossible.
- Eliot Waugh: Hello, first years. At this appointed hour, as tradition dictates, it falls upon the upper class to administer what is known simply as "The Trials". The Trials test your ability to think and act like a Magician. Pass, your journey begins. Fail, you flunk out. This is a test engineered to thin out the herd. Only those who should will survive.
- [the first years are silent]
- Eliot Waugh: Oh, nut up, this isn't Harvard. It requires actual effort.
- Margo Hanson: I'm sure by now you've realized Brakebills teaches us to be arch and ironic about magic. But this one plays it serious.
- Eliot Waugh: You must bare yourself in the presence of another magical adept and expose your highest-governing internal circumstance, which is to say, your utmost truth. You have till midnight.
- Alice Quinn: I really didn't see this coming.
- Quentin Coldwater: How could you? You're the best.
- Alice Quinn: You know what? I try so hard not to be.
- Quentin Coldwater: Why?
- Alice Quinn: I'm already pretty damn unpopular. Can you imagine what they would think if they knew how good I really am? "Spinster magician dies alone, eaten by cats".