It's a funny thing about bogs. You can fill them with rocks and sand and old logs and make a little fenced-in yard on top with a woodpile and chopping block - but bogs go right on behaving like bogs. Early in the spring they breathe ice and make their own mist, in remembrance of the time when they had black water and their own sedge blossoming untouched.

Grandmother walked up over the bare granite and thought about birds in general. It seemed to her no other creature had the same dramatic capacity to underline and perfect events - the shifts in the seasons and the weather, the changes that run through people themselves.

It's funny about love', Sophia said. 'The more you love someone, the less he likes you back.' 'That's very true,' Grandmother observed. 'And so what do you do?' 'You go on loving,' said Sophia threateningly. 'You love harder and harder.

I don't want to hear about them any more. I could vomit on the Moomintrolls.

Someone who eats pancakes and jam can't be so awfully dangerous. You can talk to him.

It looks rather ordinary," said the Snork. "Unless you consider that a top hat is always somewhat extraordinary, of course.

I mean, anyone can let Danger out but the really clever thing is finding somewhere for it to go afterwards.