And if my choice is to sit graciously in my best robes and accept the inevitable or to bail a sea with a bucket, give me the bucket.

If you wish, I shall go personally to your City and knock together the heads of Perlith and Galooney.

My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me.

Say yes, babe, or I'll spill you off over the Wall next time - got it?

He grunted; she recognized it as relief that she wasn't going to nag him further about Tor the Just, who probably wasn't that boring if he could hold off the Notherners for nine days and melt a hole in the hills.

He laughed, tried to make it into a cough, inhaled at exactly the wrong moment, and then really did cough.

The story is always better than your ability to write it.