Ponder just let it happen. It's because their minds are so often involved with deep and problematic matters, he told himself, that their mouths are allowed to wander around making a nuisance of themselves.

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

It's a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi' a toad

You can't second-guess ineffability, I always say.

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.

You never knew about people, like you never knew how deep a pond was because all you saw was the top.

That's one form of magic, of course." "What, just knowing things?" "Knowing things that other people don't know.