Alas, poor Yorick!" he said. "She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.

All these things that crib and cab in your brain, in your imagination, are in fact things that might well in later life drive you insane.

I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.

I am a total zombie just after I wake up. It takes me half an hour even to get my eyes open. Ask anyone who knows me. I can't see; I can't talk properly; I can't do anything without help. The only think I can do properly is think. And I know how to exploit my condition. I've had years of practice.

I seem to have excalibured this knife.

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.

Sophie did not care to think how Howl might react if Fanny woke him by stabbing him with her parasol.