“Nobody gets praised for the right reasons.”

“Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping.”

“And it's a pity too that I've no right to open your letters. I hope you don't get many, or my conscience will give me no peace.”

“The soldier was like that. He was an expert in getting other people to do what he wanted. The only creature that could make the soldier do something he did not want was Midnight, and Midnight did things she did not want only when Whippersnapper wanted something. That put the kitten right at the top of the pecking order. A kitten!”

“After that, all the while Millie was eating the pudding... we both tore Christopher's character to shreds. It was wonderful fun.... He drove everyone mad in Chrestomanci Castle by insisting on silk shirts and exactly the right kind of pajamas. 'And he could get them right anyway by magic,' Millie told me, 'if he wasn't too lazy to learn how.... But the thing that really annoys me is the way he never bothers to learn a person's name. If a person isn't important to him, he always forgets their name.'When Millie said this, I realized that Christopher had never once forgotten my name...”

“You have no right to make jigsaws of people.”

“But most dragons seem to have interesting personalities--besides probably having quite good reasons for what they do, if only one could understand them”