“If they look as though they're worried, we'll move in.''And do what exactly?' said Polly.'Threaten to shoot them,' said Maladict firmly.'And if they don't believe us?''Then we'll threaten to shoot them in a much louder voice,' said Maladict. 'Happy? And I hope to hell they've got some coffee!”

“And if they don't believe us, I can give them the ghost eyes, you can go all big and threatening, Farmer can do his cracknob simpleton, and my lady can don her nobleness. We'll do all right.”

“The real problem has to do with the inability by people to admit that a position they've held a long time might be wrong. That's all. Not that it is. Just that it might be. I don't know why it is, but we tend to fall in love with things we believe, Threaten them, and you threaten us.”

“Don't move," said Sprockett."Mimes don't generally attack unless they are threatened.”

“The money… will talk?' said Mr Spools carefully.'Imps,' said Moist. 'They're only a sort of intelligent spell. They don't even have to have a shape. We'll print them on the higher denominations.”

“As Atwood concludes after a random and informal sampling, men and women differ markedly in the 'scope of their threatenability': 'Why do men feel threatened by woman?' I asked a male friend of mine....'[M]en are bigger, most of the time...and they have on the average a lot more money and power.' 'They're afraid women will laugh at them,' he said. 'Undercut their world view.' Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, 'Why do women feel threatened by men?' 'They're afraid of being killed,' they said'.”