“Sure, equal pay, maternity leaves, and pro sports are important. But a girl can't make a free throw from the foul line if her head's not in the game.”

“The other [video game] franchises let you experience the adrenaline and horror of war, or deep fantasy worlds, or pro sports. A Mario game lets you pretend to be a middle-aged chubster hopping onto a turtle shell.”

“You can't stop negative thoughts from coming in, but you can make sure they leave as quickly as they enter.”

“All very well for a dull sort of girl to hitch her wheel to a man's wagon, but consider yourself warned, men enjoy a bit of sport, and they all like to catch the brightest prize, but once they do? That's when the fun and games end. His games, her fun.”

“I will take your foul city, Badoor, and I will make you pay for the slaughter of my people.”

“The house seemed almost without smells at all, pleasant or foul, leaving me to wonder if the upper class existed on a different sort of air from the rest of the world, a breeze piped into their homes from above the clouds, so clean you had to pay for it.”