“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.”

“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.”

“Rufus Maleficarus has sorely disappointed me personally. I thought he was making quite a good recovery from what the previous director had unhelpfully referred to as "a soul-searing, sanity-dissolving, profoundly malevolent appetite for power and revenge." As it happens, I think the finger-painting lessons were going very well, at least up until Rufus used the paint to create a summoning circle, and then rode out of here on the back of an obliging Hound of Tindalos...”

“This is Hell," he tried to explain for the third time. "Not a drop-in centre. You can't just turn up and say, 'Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I'd call by and have a bit of a chinwag with Lord Satan.' It simply isn't done.""No," said the infuriating mortal. "It hasn't been done. There is a difference. May I pass now?""No, you may not. Satan's a very busy . . . um, is very busy right now. He can't go interrupting his work for every Tom, Dick, and Johannes"--he paused for effect, but the human just looked at him with a faint air of what seemed to be pity--"Harry, that is, who turns up demanding audience.""Really?" said Cabal. "I had no idea. I thought this would be an uncommon occurrence, unique even, but you seem to imply that it happens all the time. Fair enough.”

“You know, I don't believe they noticed I had murdered them. I really don't. They just seemed faintly put out, as if it were a bit of bad luck, an act of God. 'Oh, my carotid artery has been severed with an open razor. I knew I should have cut down on greasy foods.' 'Botheration, I'm being belaboured with a fourteenth-century battleaxe. What are the odds, eh?”

“Lesson one: expect to get screwed over for the convenience of others on a regular basis.”

“Being an adult isn't a matter of age. It's a matter of responsibility.”