“Agnes was the worst prophet that's ever existed. Because she was always right. That's why the book never sold.”

“That's right," said Pepper. "Because," she added, "if we beat them, we'd have to be our own deadly enemies. It'd be me an' Adam against Brian an' Wensley," She sat back. "Everyone needs a Greasy Johnson," she said. "Yeah," said Adam. "That's what I thought. It's no good anyone winning. That's what I thought." He stared at Dog, or through Dog. "Seems simple enough to me," said Wensleydale, sitting back. "I don't see why it's taken thousands of years to sort out.”

“All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories—if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.”

“Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”

“That's the trouble with you young people. You think because you ain't been here long, you know everything. In my life I already forgot more than you ever know.”

“[D]on't ever apologise to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologise to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read...”

“There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and endless drizzle.You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again. Whenever it rains you will think of her. ”