I felt like I had just double-tapped Santa.

So there I was being strangled by a ranting, half-naked madman in the middle of the woods, with a she-werewolf dangling from a rope snare somewhere nearby.

Living was a dangerous past-time, and often quite painful—but there was also such joy in living, such beauty, things that one would otherwise never see, never experience, never know. The risk of pain and loss was a part of living.

Body or mind, heart or soul, we're all human, and we're supposed to feel pain. You cut yourself off from it at your own risk.

I felt my face stretch in a victorious smile. The potion had worked. I was inside. I had to suppress an urge to break into a soft shoe routine. Sometimes being able to use magic was so cool.

If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arm in eleven places.

[Mouse is] with us. The dog is a handicap-assist animal." The kid lifted his eyebrows. "My mouth is partially paralyzed," I said. "It makes it hard for me to rea. He's here to help me with the big words. Tell me if I'm supposed to push or pull on doors, that kind of thing.