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.

You're wearing that hat? After all the magic I used to make your dress pretty?" ~Howl from the movie 'Howl's Moving Castle

If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.

It was a perfectly normal May Day, but Sophie was scared of that too. And when a young man in a fantastical blue-and-silver costume spotted Sophie and decided to accost her as well, Sophie shrank into a shop doorway and tried to hide. The young man looked at her in surprise. "It's all right, you little gray mouse," he said laughing rather pityingly. "I only want to buy you a drink. Don't look so scared.

The truth between two people always cuts two ways.

I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so.

Howl has been very kind to me." And this was true, Sophie realized. Howl showed his kindness rather strangely, but, considering all Sophie did to annoy him, he had been very good to her indeed. "Do listen. He's not wicked at all!" There was a bit of a fizz from the grate at this, where Calcifer was watching with some interest. " He isn't!" Sophie said, to Calcifer as much as to Fanny.