“The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.”

“By then she was the only one of her seven siblings without a child and quickly approaching thirty (which is like forty when you adjust for inflation since 1980).”

“This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."[Women Know Everything!]”

“Mahoney: "Thirty-seven seconds. Great, well done; now we wait."Mr. Magorium: "No, we breathe, we pulse, we regenerate. our hearts beat, our minds create, our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds well used is a lifetime.”

“Mostly I was just plain freaked. Not mentally tottering, I think a human mind that's moderately well-adjusted can absorb a lot of strangeness before it actually totters, but freaked, yes.”

“Just lie back, wench."She snickered. "Did you call me wench? Well, you certainly dated yourself there, didn't you? Sometimes I forget how old you are. What's your age, anyway? Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight?""I'm thirty-three.”