“Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.”

“This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.”

“It’s a way of talking about lust without talking about lust, he told them. It is a way of talking about sex, and fear of sex, and death, and fear of death, and what else is there to talk about?”

“And why does he talk so funny? Doesn't he mean squashed tomatoes?I don't think that they had tomatoes when he comes from, said Bod. And that's just how they talk then.”

“We build a shell around it, like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function , day in, day out. Immune to others’ pain and loss.”

“She's not talking now," muttered the Rani's aunt, wagging one stick-like finger. "That tiger is throwing his voice.""Can no-one get that woman to stop talking?" asked the Rajah of the room."Easier to stop 'em than start 'em," said the tiger, and he dealt with the matter.”

“When most people said "I'm psychic, you see," they meant "I have an overactive but unoriginal imagination/wear black nail varnish/talk to my budgie;" when Anathema said it, it sounded as though she was admitting to a hereditary disease which she'd much prefer not to have.”