“And yet, even when all was well, as Shakespeare said, that ends well, did they say ‘Hey, Kendra, we understand that you made a noble effort. Why not come to the palace for some champagne sometime?’ Noooooo. They’re all, ‘Get thee from our kingdom, witch, or it’s the guillotine.” They’re lucky I didn’t turn them into talking swine.”

“I don’t trust compliments. I’ve been getting them for years. Sometimes I deserve them, sometimes I didn’t. But generally when people give you compliments there’s one of two things wrong with them. Either they’re false, or what’s worse is they’re sincere. They really mean the compliment. And then they’re offering you their loyalty. And I’m kind of a stingy… Well, I don’t necessarily want to give all that loyalty back. So either way, let’s skip the compliments.”

“Well, sir, if things are real, they’re there all the time.""Are they?" said the Professor; and Peter did not quite know what to say.”

“No one talks about it. No one talks about them at all. “The Ancients prefer discretion,” Mom once told me. But some say it’s because they’re so freakish we’d drop dead of fright. Others say they’re too attractive, too tempting. I prefer this theory.”

“Sometimes when you get older — and I’m not talking about you, I’m talking generally, because everyone ages differently — things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they’re part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they’re not true — why, then you get offended because you can’t remember the first part. All you know is that you’ve been called a liar.”

“You make someone into a object of – not so much of pity as of weakness, sickness, stupidity, inefectiveness, do you see what I mean? You hit them for their stupidity and their inability to respond, and when you’ve hurt them, marked them, they’re even more sick and ugly, aren’t they? And they’re afraid and cringing too. Oh, I know this isn’t very pleasant, but you did ask.”“Go on” he said.“So you’ve got a frightened, stupid, even disabled person, silenced, made ugly, and what can you do with someone like that, someone who’s unworthy of being treated well? You treat them badly because that’s what they deserve. One thinks of poor little kids that no one love because they’re dirty, sovered in snot and shit, and always screaming. So you beat them because they’re hateful, they’re low, they’re sub-human. That’s all they’re good for, being hit, being reduced even further.”