“...The plural of elf is elves! What a language! What a world!”

“...and at the table next to her was a little boy in a soccer uniform sitting with his mother who told him, The plural of elf is elves. A wave of happiness came over me. It felt giddy to be part of it all. To be drinking a cup of coffee like a normal person. I wanted to shout out: The plural of elf is elves! What a language! What a world!”

“The elves had a coalition agreement with the school, the head elf had said. It almost sounded like they’d unionized, and that an essential rule of the elf union was that only elves did elf work. Perhaps they viewed it as job security. James wasn’t sure if Aunt Hermione would view this as an improvement or a setback.”

“what matters is not the enclosure of the work within a harmonious figure, but the centrifugal force produced by it -- a plurality of language as a guarantee of a truth that is not merely partial.”

“Effectively we become the DVD of Elf that you ignore at nine o'clock on a Friday night, on the presumption there will be something better (at least, something more fulfilling, more complex, and that you haven't seen twice before) on the shelves somewhere. And guess what you end up going home with? Well, that's what we are to these beautiful, fantastic women: Elves.”

“What did he mean by "society"? The plural of human beings?”