It is quite a risk to spank a wizard for getting hysterical about his hair.

I think my moment of revelation came when I saw this young man come on court in the most flamboyant clothes. He had a sweet smile and questionably blonde hair and a generally chirpy glamour that in fact concealed huge skill. When he was interviewed he confessed to hating to get angry and it was also said that he slithered out of winning when it came to the big matches. And I thought, My God! This Andre Agassi is the image of Howl in my book HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE!

It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.

When have you looked?" said Sophie. "Oh, how your rears flap and your long nose twitches", Howl croaked.

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

Theseus made unscrupulous use of Ariadne (whom he left on an island where Bacchus later found her-I always think that really meant she took to drink, poor girl).

Interesting things did seem to happen, but always to somebody else.