“I'm told I'm very charming when people do what I want.”

“Most people seem to take pleasure in feeling superior to someone. I'm not like that, which pleases me because it makes me feel superior.”

“I like your coat," she announced, as if her approval of my dress were the supreme prize in a good-taste contest."Does that mean I get to see Jill?"She considered this. "Perhaps it does," she said."Just what are your intentions concerning my roommate?""I'm going to kidnap her and hold her for ransom.""Really?" she said, appearing delighted. "How splendid.""Or else I'll put her in a cage and show her for money, but I think you'd be more suitable for that role."She nodded. "Yes. The kidnapping is a much better idea." She stood straight and walked with exaggerated grace into the living room. There was a very nice wooden stairway, curving back on itself with a stained-glass window at the landing. She called, "Jill! Your kidnapper is here," and gave me a big smile."Aren't you going to come in?" she said."Only if you want me to. We kidnappers are very polite.""Oh do, by all means.”

“When I say that life is like an onion, I mean this: if you don't do anything with it, it goes rotten. So far, that's no different from other vegetables. But when an onion goes bad, it can either do it from the inside, or the outside. So sometimes you see one that looks good, but the core is rotten. Other times, you can see a bad spot on it, but if you cut that out, the rest is fine. Tastes sharp, but that's what you paid for, isn't it?”

“It's just that no one wants to be the one being rescued, we all want to do the rescuing.”

“You may borrow them, if you wish," so I could avoid letting him startle me."I'd like that very much.""I should warn you, however, that I have several volumes devoted to curses for people who don't return books.""I'd like to borrow those, too.”

“I will do you one last favour, in the name and memory of the figment you have replaced. I will clarify a misapprehension of yours. Circumstances did not conspire against me. I was not led into anything, nor did I fall. I chose my life and my course. I chose to do wrong in the hope that right might come of it. I regret it. I would choose differently now. But the choice was mine. Deny that, falsify it, tinsel it over with pious, pitying justification, and you deny everything I am and every scrap of what little good I have been able to do in my life. Good or bad, give me credit for what I have done. I would rather go honestly to Hell, admitting that I leaped knowingly into error and folly, than enter into the sweetest Heaven men can dream of by whining that I had been pushed.”