If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them - but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay.

If a man loved me, I would have talked myself into loving him, and I would have loved him very deeply after a while.

How's the Angel of Death supposed to do his job with clipped wings?

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of anything. Whatever you have been, you are mine now. I can hold you.

Lir said, "It is my right. A hero is entitled to his happy ending, when it comes at last." But Schmendrick answered, "This is not the end, either for you or for her.

The most professional curse ever snarled or croaked or thundered can have no effect on a pure heart.

He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.