Exaggerating?" Silk sounded shocked. "You don't mean to say that horses can actually lie, do you? Hettar shrugged. "Of course. They lie all the time. They're very good at it." For a moment Silk looked outraged at the thought, and then he suddenly laughed. "Somehow that restores my faith in the order of the universe," he declared. Wolf looked pained. "Silk," he said pointedly, "you're a very evil man. Did you know that?" "One does one's best," Silk replied mockingly.

Nobles and peasants marry early. Businessmen tend to wait.

It's the nature of man to ask questions. --Belgarath

All social workers want is to get everyone involved in a programme. Because a programme provides full employment for three generations of social workers. And they mess up.

Will you never grow up?" "I doubt it, and I certainly hope not.

Call it my little gesture toward social conscience, but I like to think I'm teaching a certain number of people to read. Now that sounds pretentious!

One of the less attractive aspects of human nature is our tendency to hate the people we haven't treated very well; it's much easier than accepting guilt. If we can convince ourselves that the people we betrayed or enslaved were subhuman monsters in the first place, then our guilt isn't nearly so black as we secretly know that it is. Humans are very, very good at shifting blame and avoiding guilt.