Now that their long war was over, they could get on with the proper concern of all civilised nations, which is to prepare for the next one.

The librarians were mysterious. It was said they could tell what book you needed just by looking at you, and they could take your voice away with a word.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

When you break rules, break 'em good and hard

They were also slightly less intelligent than he was. This is a quality you should always pray for in your would-be murderer.

That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next.

If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power... they will talk, they will gloat. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.