Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

What's money interested in? More money.

Happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in.

It doesn't matter if dragons are flying overhead or whatever - a lot of Victoriana is still cut in the frame of fantasy.

The trouble with thinking was that, once you started, you went on doing it.

Now he knew: They were real. Who’d make up a thing like this? Okay, one of them was a cheese that rolled around of its own accord, but nobody was perfect.

She folded her arms and then shouted, "Right you thieving scunners! How dare you steal Miss Treason's funeral meats!" "Oh, waily, waily, it's the foldin' o' the arms, the foooldin' o' the aaaarmss!" cried Daft Wullie, dropping to the ground and trying to cover himself with leaves. Around him Feegles started to wail and cower and Big Yan began to bang his head on the rear wall of the dairy.