Revenge is a dish best served unexpectedly and from a distance - like a thrown trifle.

You, sir, are a romantic, and I'm afraid the condition is incurable. -Eponymous Clent

Mosca and Saracen shared, if not a friendship, at least the solidarity of the generally despised. Mosca assumed that Saracen had his reasons for his persecution of terriers and his possessive love of the malthouse roof. In turn, when Mosca had interrupted Saracen’s self-important nightly patrol and scooped him up, Saracen had assumed that she too had her reasons.

Sometimes fear made you angry. Perhaps after years anger cooled, like a sword taken from a forge. Perhaps in the end you were left with something very cold and very sharp.

True stories seldom have endings. I don't want a happy ending, I want more story.

Ordinary life did not stop just because kings rose and fell, Mosca realized. People adapted. If the world turned upside down, everyone ran and hid in their houses, but a very short while later, if all seemed quiet, they came out again and started selling each other potatoes.

I'm never telling the truth again! It gets you hanged and locked out and starved and froze and hated . . .