“What he remembers with perfect clarity is sitting on a train headed for Madrid, feeling the sort of happiness he imagines spirits might feel, freed of their earthly bodies but still possessed of their essential selves.”

“Gideon Lightwood said he was at the Institute in Madrid. What on earth was he doing there?''Faffing about, most likely', said Will.”

“Diets are essentially training courses in how to feel fat and feel like a failure.”

“He wished to cover her with his body, possess her-for if he could do that, he could pretend to himself that she was safe. Covering her so...he might protect her. Or so he felt, even knowing how senseless the feeling was.”

“When the Holy Spirit does his work of regeneration in the hearts of men he does not come on them with great powerful feelings and emotions which cannot be resisted. He does not possess men as evil spirits take possession of their victims.”

“I'll leave it to you, Sassenach," he said dryly, "to imagine what it feels like to arrive unexpectedly in the midst of a brothel, in possession of a verra large sausage.”