You mean I'm going to have to do a spell in front of a bunch of toffs?" Kim said, outraged that no one had mentioned this before she had agreed to this come-out. "Yes, exactly", Lady Wendall said serenely. "You and Richard have plenty of time to design something that will reflect your unique background, as well as demonstrating your abilities as a wizard. I am looking forward to seeing what you decide upon." "I could pick everyone's pockets at once with magic, "Kim said, still disgruntled. "That'd 'reflect my unique background', all right".

He pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave me a sidelong look, the one that meant he was so sure you were wrong that he could just wait and let you find out for yourself the hard way.

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.

News of Daniel's disappearance does not alarm me as it might have done a week ago. Given recent events, very little alarms me as it might have done a week ago. I feel as if my supply of alarm has been exhausted, at least temporarily.

Kim was more than a little inclined to snarl at him, but in the past few days she had learned that snarling at Mairelon did little good. He simply smiled and corrected her grammar.

One of the things everybody seems to want to ask writers is, "Where do you get your ideas?" When people ask me this, my usual response is, "Ideas are the easy part. The hard part is writing them down."

If you want to build a car, you don't slap a bunch of iron ore, some sand, a rubber tree, and a couple of cows together and call it good