Every time I do what you say I tumble a bit farther down this well of darkness, an' this here is a drop too deep an' too dark for me. I have to stop falling while I can still see a bit of the sky.

Making a wish is like saying, 'I can't deal with anything, I give up, somebody bigger come along and solve it all instead.

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.

I want my chirfugging goose back!

It was all very well being told that she could do nothing to make things better. Neverfell did not have the kind of mind that could take that quietly. She did not have the kind of mind that could be quiet at all.

So this was a nest of radicals. She thought a hotbed of sedition would involve more gunpowder and secret handshakes, and less shuffling of feet and passing the sugar.

If wits were pins, the man would be a veritable hedgehog.