So you were going to rescue the Prince! Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?" "Not likely! I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it!

Oh! Polly thought. Why aren't all girls locked up by law the year they turn fifteen? They do such stupid things!

Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.

This book will prove the following ten facts: 1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there. 2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch. 3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity. 4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight. 5. Music does not always sooth the troubled beast. 6. An Englishman's home is his castle. 7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male. 8. One black eye deserves another. 9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm. 10. It pays to increase your word power.

Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all.

As often happened, Charmain began to despair of getting her mother to understand. She's not stupid, she just never lets her mind out, she thought.

He scarcely saw his parents. When Christopher was small, he was terrified that he would meet Papa out walking in the Park one day and not recognize him.