“Do shut your mouth--you'll catch flies sitting there like that.”

“The lesson seemed to be twofold: do not anger the gods, but if you must, at least make sure your city isn't next to a lake, as that's just asking for trouble.”

“Now you're an adult, Katya!" he'd said, picking her up under the armpits like he'd been doing since she'd been born.”

“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.”

“Horst passed him a bottle he had picked up in his rapid trip from there to here. Remarkably, it's contents had survived the transit. "Drink this," he said, unmoved by Cabal's anger. "You need to save your voice for your next session." Cabal took the bottle testily and swigged from it. there was a moments pause, just long enough for Cabal's expression to change from testy to horrified revulsion. He spat the liquid violently onto the grass like a man who has got absent-minded with the concentrated nitric acid and a mouth pipette. He glared at Horst as he took off his spectacles and wiped his suddenly weeping eyes "Disinfectant? You give me disinfectant to drink?" Horst's surprise was replaced with mild amusement. "It's root beer, Johannes. Have you never had root beer?" Cabal looked suspiciously at him, then at the bottle "People drink this?" "Yes." "For non-medical reasons?" "That's right." Cabal shook his head in open disbelief. "They must be insane.”

“You've had your warning, Cabal. Now, prepare to face the terrible arcane wrath of Maleficarus!" Somewhere, a sheep bleated and quite ruined the effect.”

“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.”