There were horrendous, dramatic, violent quantities of green slime—oodles of it. It covered Howl completely. It draped his head and shoulders in sticky dollops, heaping on his knees and hands, trickling in glops down his legs, and dripping off the stool in sticky strands. It was in oozing ponds and crawling pools over most of the floor. Long fingers of it had crept into the hearth. It smelled vile.

The truth between two people always cuts two ways.

Every man in Ingary is scared stiff of her. You ought to know how that feels, Sophie dear.

You must admit I have a right to live in a pigsty if I want.

But I do think that when people say 'a learning curve,' they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward.

It does not seem to me that I have the right to foist a story on people, most of whom are children who should be learning all the time, unless I am learning from it too.

Christopher discovered that you dealt with obnoxious masters and most older boys the way you dealt with governesses: you quite politely told them the truth in the way they wanted to hear it, so that they thought they had won and left you in peace.