Currently, it was leading him through a neighborhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you'd bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and garbage were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality, and the graffiti was close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.

Here's what I suggest," he said. "You pretend that rats can think, and I'll promise to pretend that humans can think, too.

They can tak' oour lives but they canna tak' oour troousers!

They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt.

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.

You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home.

It was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying.