Where's the pleasure in bein' the winner if the loser ain't alive to know they've lost?

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

What did they feed the lions and tigers with in the ark, sir?

You get all sorts of people in the library, and the librarian gets it all.

You can't kill me, I've got a magic... AAAARGH !

I'm not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We're not 'celebrities', whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They're what people meet.

But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.