“Richard wondered how the marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look like a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do.”

“Any way, death is so final, isn't it?"Is it?" asked Richard."Sometimes," said the marquis de Carabas. And they went down.”

“We were expecting to see you at the market.""Yes. Well. Some people thought I was dead. I was forced to keep a low profile.""Why . . . why did some people think you were dead?"The marquis looked at Richard with eyes that had seen too much and gone too far. "Because they killed me.”

“She smiled again. "Do you like cat?" she said."Yes," said Richard. "I quite like cats."Anaesthesia looked relieved. "Thigh?" she asked, "or breast?”

“Human beings do not like being pushed about by gods. They may seem to, on the surface, but somewhere on the inside, underneath it all, they sense it, and they resent it.”

“She had forgotten them all; forgotten Richard down in the mud, and the marquis and his foolish crossbow, and the world. She was delighted and transported, in a perfect place, the world she lived for. Her world contained two things: Hunter, and the Beast. The Beast knew that too. It was the perfect match, the hunter and the hunted. And who was who, and which was which, only time would reveal; time and the dance.”

“When I am a writer, I shall do parenthetical asides. And footnotes. There will be footnotes. I wonder how you do them? And italics. How do you make italics happen?”