“But when it comes to applied sciences, technologies, any spotty Herbert with a degree and a lab coat can perform greater wonders than Merlin.”

“I had wanted some cheese, but couldn't find any at short notice. It was a shame. Cheese goes so well with tragedy.”

“Cats, as any rational person knows, are solitary, opportunistic, ambush predators, much like spiders, but with fewer legs and a better fan club.”

“There is possibly no insult so calculated to sting the English as the suggestion that they may at any time be considered foreign, as this flies in the face of the obvious truth that the whole of Creation actually belongs to the English, and that they are just allowing everybody else to camp out on bits of it from a national sense of noblesse oblige.”

“All this bunch of so-called 'adults' was doing was making enemies of one another when what they really needed to be concentrating on was how to get out alive.”

“You wish to isolate fear. Ah, well, if only I'd realised your ambitions were so simple. Perhaps we can work up to it by capturing faith, bottling hope, and presenting love to the world as a commodity, available by the pound, wrapped in greaseproof paper and topped with a bow.”

“Cabal regarded her with mild amusement. “Smile when you whisper,” he advised her. “You’re supposed to be flirting with me, if you recall?” She stared at him icily. Then suddenly her expression thawed and she smiled winsomely, her eyes dewy with romantic love. “Oh, sweetheart… somebody tried to kill you? Whosoever would do such a thing to my nimpty-bimpty snookums?”Cabal could not have been more horrified if she’d pulled off her face to reveal a gaping chasm of eternal night from which glistening tentacles coiled and groped. That had already happened to him once in his life, and he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. “What?” he managed in a dry whisper.“Smile when you whisper,” she said, her expression fixed and blood-curdlingly coquettish. You’re supposed to be flirting with me, remember?” “Please don’t do that.”