a technician who uses the term “glitch” is like a Doctor who tells you you’re suffering from a “thingy,” except the doctor won’t tell you to go home and try turning yourself on and off again.

I thought it was her wicked stepmother who poisoned her...' '...Turned out the wicked stepmother had an alibi.' '...Seems she was off poisoning someone else at the time. Chance in a million, really. It was just bad luck.

...it was imaginative people who tended to lie. Lying required making stuff up, and only imaginative people were good at that.

Once upon a time – for that is how all stories should begin – there was a boy who lost his mother.

You can't prove that something doesn't exist. You can only prove that something does exist.

He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained in books. And some of the children understood, and some did not.

‎"Sarge, mr. Nurd here is threatening to turn me to jelly." "really?" said Sarge. "what flavor?