First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.

And our lady friend, she thinks life works like a fairy tale.' Well, that’s harmless, isn’t it?' Yeah, but in fairy tales, when someone dies... it’s just a word.

I commend my soul to any god that can find it.

...the little man's total obliviousness to all forms of danger somehow made danger so discouraged that it gave up and went away.

Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.

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

Polly felt questing eyes boring into her. She was embarrassed, of course. But not for the obvious reason. It was for the other one, the little lesson that life sometimes rams home with a stick: you are not the only one watching the world. Other people are people; while you watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world isn’t just about you.