It looked the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed,' although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had beed badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.

The Library didn't only contain magical books, the ones which are chained to their shelves and are very dangerous. It also contained perfectly ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did the more dangeous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the reader's brain.

We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.

He said it was better to belong where you don't belong than not to belong where you used to belong, remembering when you used to belong there.

Occasionally he would very nearly swear.

What I've always said was, hang in there, let me write what I want to write, and you'll probably like it.

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.