Tiffany knew what the problem was immediately. She'd seen it before, at birthday parties. Her brother was suffering from tragic sweet deprivation. Yes, he was surrounded by sweets. But the moment he took any sweet at all, said his sugar-addled brain, that meant he was not taking all the rest. And there were so many sweets he'd never be able to eat them all. It was too much to cope with. The only solution was to burst into tears.

Magic never dies. It merely fades away.

No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.

Neither of my parents went to church, but they did everything that you needed to do to be Christian. That's something a Quaker would call an intimation of the divine.

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.

It's never a good idea to ask a man on a tight-rope how he keeps his balance: a) he would probably fall off and b) he probably doesn't know what the muscles are called in any case.

DO I DETECT A NOTE OF UNSEASONAL GRUMPINESS? said Death. NO SUGAR PIGGYWIGGY FOR YOU, ALBERT.