No matter how good you are at sneaking, you can't ever sneak well enough so that mosquitoes won't find you, and no matter how worried and tense you are, or how hard you are trying to pay attention, you just can't help noticing when a cloud of mosquitoes comes for you like you're their first good meal since last fall.

Sometimes I couldn't help thinking that the unluckiest thing about being the thirteenth child was having all those older brothers and sisters telling me what to do.

This is the most important lesson you must learn about magic," Miss Ochiba went on. "There are many ways of seeing. Each has an element of truth, but none is the whole truth. If you limit yourselves to one way of seeing, one truth, you will limit your power. You will also place limits on the kinds of spells you can cast, as well as their strength. To be a good magician, you must see in many ways. You must be flexible. You must be willing to learn from different sources. And you must always remember that the truths you see are incomplete.

In a lot of ways I was a generation ahead of my generation; I had a working mother wheneveryone else’s mother was staying at home.

Well,” said the frog, “what are you going to do about it?” “Marrying Therandil? I don’t know. I’ve tried talking to my parents, but they won’t listen, and neither will Therandil.” “I didn’t ask what you’d said about it,” the frog snapped. “I asked what you’re going to do. Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things.

Murphy is a writer's best friend, but you have to keep an eye on him, or he'll steal the silver.

Mendanbar took a deep breath. You could stay here. At the castle, I mean. With me. This wasn't coming out at all the way he had wanted it to, but it was too late to stop now. He hurried on, As Queen of the Enchanted Forest, if you think you would like that. I would.