I taught myself more in the library than school taught me.

Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.

But you ain't part of it, are you?" said Granny conversationally. "You try, but you always find yourself watchin' yourself watchin' people, eh? Never quite believin' anything? Thinkin' the wrong thoughts?

Ye know full well that the meaning of life is to find your gift. To find your gift is happiness. Never tae find it is misery.

Cats don't hunt seals. They would if they knew what they were and where to find them. But they don't, so that's all right.

I'm fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like something you put up in the rain.

I know loads of coppers and dealt with them a lot when I was a journalist - coppers are easy to write for; they tend to run on rails.