“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.”

“The way to write a book is the application of the seat of one's pants to the seat of one's chair”

“But she was no guardian angel. She was not trying to help me at all. She had been trying to claim me as she had claimed the lives of my fellow passengers.She was the thing that remained forever unseen in my visions of her tales. She lurked near the bodies of those whose whose lives were so cruelly taken. She was there always, waiting.”

“One of the delights beyond the grasp of youth is that of Not Going. Not to have an invitation for the dance, the party, the picnic, the excursion is to be diminished. To have an invitation and then not to be able to go -- oh cursed spite! Now I do not care the rottenest fig whether I receive an invitation or not. After years of illusion, I finally decided I was missing nothing by Not Going. I no longer care whether I am missing anything or not.”

“In my confused state I wondered if I had not died and gone to hell. And if this was the case, I wished that I had been allowed more opportunities to sin, for this seemed a rather excessive judgement on what had been a frankly dull and blameless life. But I was not dead. I could see that now.”

“To show a child what has once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own, so that there is now a double delight seen in the glow of trust and affection, this is happiness.”

“Give me a funeral over a wedding any day,.' said Uncle Montague with a sigh. 'The conversation is almost always superior.”