I don't know why wicked places generally look wicked. You'd think they'd look nice, to fool people, but they hardly ever do.

Hup hup ha ha hammy hee hee!

Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don't you find?

The Basic Eight and Watch Your Mouth both have first-person voices, and I ended up investigating those voices and investing so much in them that I think many people took them more seriously than they ought to have.

There was something I was always very good at, however, and that was teaching myself not to be frightened while frightening things are going on. It is difficult to do this, but I had learned. It is simply a matter of putting one’s fear aside, like the vegetable on the plate you don’t want to touch until all of your rice and chicken are gone, and getting frightened later, when one is out of danger. Sometimes I imagine I will be frightened for the rest of my life because of all of the fear I put aside during my time in Stain’d-by-the-Sea.

Put your hair up, Min. The secret ingredient is not your hair.

I was too jitterbuggy happy to sleep, and the whole day kept playing in my brain's little screening room.