Besides, if you're going to die horribly, you might as well do it with style.

Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.

Minor magicians take pains to fit this traditional wizardly bill. By contrast, the really powerful magicians take pleasure in looking like accountants.

He was transfixed at the sight of the lords and ladies of his realm running about like demented chickens.

The important thing about any book is that you have to have a good story and that it has to be exciting. Then it's nice to add other levels underneath that people can pick up on.

So I departed, leaving behind a pungent smell of brimstone. Just something to remember me by.

Believe me, I know all about bottle acoustics. I spent much of the sixth century in an old sesame oil jar, corked with wax, bobbing about in the Red Sea. No one heard my hollers. In the end an old fisherman set me free, by which time I was desperate enough to grant him several wishes. I erupted out in the form of a smoking giant, did a few lightning bolts, and bent to ask him his desire. Poor old boy had dropped dead of a heart attack. There should be a moral there, but for the life of me I can't see one.