“Each of the dancers took a partner, the living with the dead, each to each. Bod reached out his hand and found himself touching fingers with, and gazing into the grey eyes of, the lady in the cobweb dress. She smiled at him.“Hello, Bod,” she said.“Hello,” he said, as he danced with her. “I don’t know your name.”“Names aren’t really important,” she said.“I love your horse. He’s so big! I never knew horses could be that big.”“He is gentle enough to bear the mightiest of you away on his broad back, and strong enough for the smallest of you as well.”“Can I ride him?” asked Bod.“One day,” she told him, and her cobweb skirts shimmered. “One day. Everybody does.”“Promise?”I promise.”

“How old are you?" said the girl. "What are you doing here? Do you live here? What's your name?" "I don't know," said Bod. "You don't know your name?" said the girl. "Course you do. Everybody knows their own name. Fibber." "I know my name," said Bod. "And I know what I'm doing here. But I don't know the other things you said.”

“Repeat after me, there are the living and the dead, there are day-folk and night-folk, there are ghouls and mist-walkers, there are high hunters and the Hounds of God. Also, there are solitary types.""What are you?" asked Bod."I," she said sternly, "am Miss Lupescu.""And what is Silas?"She hesitated. Then she said, "He is a solitary type.”

“He's out here, somewhere, and he wants you dead,' she said. 'Him as killed your family. Us in the graveyard, we wants you to stay alive. We wants you to surprise us and disappoint us and impress us and amaze us. Come home, Bod.”

“Silas continued, in his voice like velvet, "You had parents. An older sister. They were killed. I believe that you were to have been killed as well, and that you were not was due to chance, and the intervention of the Owenses.""And you," said Bod, who had had that night described to him over the years by many people, some of whom had even been there. It had been a big night in the graveyard.Silas said, "Out there, the man who killed your family is, I believe, still looking for you, still intends to kill you."Bod shrugged. "So?" he said. "It's only death. I mean, all of my best friends are dead.”

“So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?''Love,' he explained.She looked at him with eyes the blue of the sky. 'I hope you choke on it,' she said, flatly.”

“Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. ‘Now.’Bod thought for a moment. ‘The living,’ he said. ‘Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, ‘... Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.”