My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.

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.

...if the spell was off, I’d have my heart eaten before I could turn around.” “Don’t you want your heart eaten?” asked the fire. [...] “Naturally I don’t,” Sophie answered.

In addition, Master Twinkle seems convinced that someone is denying him a pair of stripey trousers.

I can't abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!

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.

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.