Mutually assured destruction.

Little mouse," a voice said through the keyhole. "Don't you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat's delight?

They say that nameless things change constantly—that names fix them in place like pins.

Our tragedy is that we forget it might be someone else first.

It's not that I want you to be a certain way--don't you want a boyfriend?" "Why bother with that? Let's find incubi." "Incubi?" "Demons. Plural. Like octopi. And we're much more likely to find them"--her voice dropped conspiratorially--"while swimming naked in the Atlantic a week before Halloween than practically anywhere else I can think of.

Memory is slippery. It bends to our understanding of the world, twists to accommodate our prejudices. It is unreliable. Witnesses seldom remember the same things. They identify the wrong people. They give us the details of events that never happened. Memory is slippery, but my memories suddenly feel slipperier.

It demeans you to cover rotten meat with honey. I know what I am. What would you want with a monster?" "Everything.