“This book started like this.My son, who is called Michael or Mike these days, but was Mikey back then, was angry at me. I'd said one of those things that parents say, like «isn't it time you were in bed», and he had looked up at me, furious, and said, «I wish I didn't have a dad! I wish I had...» and then stopped and thought, trying to think of what one could have instead of a father. Finally he said «I wish I had goldfish!»”

“Fat Charlie blew his nose. "I never knew I had a brother," he said."I did," said Spider. "I always meant to look you up, but I got distracted. You know how it is.""Not really.""Things came up.""What kind of things?""Things. They came up. That's what things do. They come up. I can't be expected to keep track of them all.""Well, give me a f'rinstance."Spider drank more wine. "Okay. The last time I decided that you and I should meet, I, well, I spent days planning it. Wanted it to go perfectly. I had to choose my wardrobe. Then I had to decide what I'd say to you when we met. I knew that the meeting of two brothers, well, it's the subject of epics, isn't it? I decided that the only way to treat it with the appropriate gravity would be to do it in verse. But what kind of verse? Am I going to rap it? Declaim it? I mean, I'm not going to greet you with a limerick. So. It had to be something dark, something powerful, rhythmic, epic. And then I had it. The perfect line: Blood calls to blood like sirens in the night. It says so much. I knew I'd be able to get everything in there - people dying in alleys, sweat and nightmares, the power of free spirits uncrushable. Everything was going to be there. And then I had to come up with a second line, and the whole thing completely fell apart. The best I could come up with was Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty got a fright."Fat Charlie blinked. "Who exactly is Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty?""It's not anybody. It's just there to show you where the words ought to be. But I never really got any futher on it than that, and I couldn't turn up with just a first line, some tumpties and three words of an epic poem, could I? That would have been disrespecting you.""Well....""Exactly. So I went to Hawaii for the week instead. Like I said, something came up.”

“I would not wish to marry someone who had already been married. It would be,' she opined, 'like having someone else break in one's own pony.”

“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.”

“I think . . . I said things to Silas. He'll be angry.''If he didn't care about you, you couldn't upset him,' was all she said.”

“I asked him if it were a mirage, and he said yes. I said it was a dream, and he agreed, But said it was the desert's dream not his. And he told me that in a year or so, when he had aged enough for any man, then he would walk into the wind, until he saw the tents. This time, he said, he would go on with them.”

“A voice from the creature, smooth as buttered oil. "He-llo," is said. "Ding-dong. You look remarkably like dinner."I'm Charlie Nancy," said Charlie Nancy. "Who are you?"I am Dragon," said the dragon. "And I shall devour you in one slow mouthful, little man in a hat."Charlie blinked. What would my father do? He wondered. What would Spider have done?...Er. You’re bored with talking to me now, and you’re going to let me pass unhindered,” he told the dragon, with as much conviction as he was able to muster.Gosh. Good try. But I’m afraid I’m not,” said the dragon, enthusiastically.Actually, I’m going to eat you.”You aren’t scared of limes, are you?” asked Charlie, before remembering that he’d given the lime to Daisy.The creature laughed, scornfully. “I,” it said, “am frightened of nothing.”Nothing?”Nothing,” it said.Charlie said “Are you extremely frightened of nothing?”Absolutely terrified of it,” admitted the Dragon.You know,” said Charlie, “Have nothing in my pockets. Would you like to see it?”No,” said the dragon, uncomfortably, “I most definitely would not.”There was a flapping of wings like sails, and Charlie was alone on the beach. “That,” he said, “was much too easy.”