I think one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a writer is to follow your initial [writing] plan too stringently. A story needs room to grow and evolve.

I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.

It is quite a thing. There are so many men, all endlessly trying to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me lest I fall.

He taught only one class: 'Unlikely Maths'. But since the time was listed as "now" and the place, "everywhere," this was hardly helpful in tracking him down.

Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.

Just handle the books gently and you’ll get along fine.

I knelt and opened up my lute case. Moving the lute aside, I pressed the lid of the secret compartment and twisted it open. I slid Threpe's sealed letter inside, where it joined the hollow horn with Nina's drawing and a small sack of dried apple I had stowed there. There was nothing special about the dried apple, but in my opinion if you have a secret compartment in your lute case and don't use it to hide things, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with you.