When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

...Roland de Chumsfanleigh (it wasn't his fault).

Good and bad is tricky," she said. "I ain't too certain about where people stand. P'raps what matters is which way you face." (pp. 348-349)

Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.

Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out til too late that he's been playing with two queens all along.

By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.