“‎TOM!"No answer."TOM!"No answer."What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"No answer.The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service-- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.”

“The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service — she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:”

“She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a pair of gunmetal-framed reading glasses. She flicked them open, switchblade-style, with a snap of her wrist, and shoved them onto her nose.”

“Fred, Fred, Fred, I'm sick of hearing about him!' snapped Jess's mum. 'He rang the other day, and straight away you were off out to meet him. Haven't you got any dignity? Any pride? Or will you just run off out at the beck and call of any Tom, Dick, or Harry?''Well, I wouldn't cross the road to see Tom or Dick, but if it was Prince Harry, well, now you're talking!' she said. Granny laughed. Mum looked cross and ran her fingers through her hair in a tragic and fatigued way.”

“She looked out then, through the crowd, and saw Simon with the Lightwoods, looking at her across the empty space that separated them. It was the same way that Jace had looked at her at the manor. It was the one thread that bound these two boys that she loved so much, she thought, their one commonality: They both believed in her even when she didn't believe in herself. ”

“The riders, too, were like nothing she had ever seen before: ethereal men and women with pale visages, their cheekbones so sharply sculpted that she could see their skulls through translucent skin. They surrounded her and looked at her with steely blue eyes, each gaze an arrow staking her to that spot, and she could not close her eyes though the sight of them made her eyes burn as if she were looking at the sun.”