“Farmer Giles went home feeling very uncomfortable. He was finding that a local reputation may require keeping up, and that may prove awkward.”

“I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable, I may say unhappy.”

“This book," he began, "is very, very unsuitable." He paused, then went on. "In fact, in my whole life, I have never read or even imagined something so unsuitable." Here he stopped, still staring at me. He held the book up slightly and pointed at it with his chin. "May I keep it?”

“As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it is also dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable. Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played.”

“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.”

“It was a city in which the very old and the awkwardly new jostled each other, not uncomfortably, but without respect;”