The great thing about fantasy is that you can drag dreams and longings and hopes and fears and strivings out of your subconscious and call them 'magic' or 'dragons' or 'faeries' and get to know them better. But then I write the stuff. Obviously I'm prejudiced.

But the uproar this caused was nothing compared with the uproar when Katronia noticed [Rosie] had also cut her eyelashes. Various negotiations (including, finally, such desperate measures as "supposing you ever want to eat again") eventually produced the grudging promise that, in return for Katronia keeping her hair cut short, she would leave her eyelashes alone.

Feeling at peace, however fragilely, made it easy to slip into the visionary end of the dark-sight. The rose shadows said that they loved the sun, but that they also loved the dark, where their roots grew through the lightless mystery of the earth. The roses said: You do not have to choose.

Cigars should be like onions," she said, unfastening the catch and pushing back the pane. "Either the whole company does, or the whole company does not.

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

It's hard to look too grand when you're led by someone who looks like a pudding with legs.

Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.