“It was here that the thaum, hitherto believed to be the smallest possible particle of magic, was succesfully demonstrated to be made up of /resons/ (Lit.: 'Thing-ies') or reality fragments. Currently research indicates that each reson is itself made up of a combination of at least five 'flavours', known as 'up', 'down', 'sideways', 'sex appeal' and 'peppermint'.”

“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”

“At some time in the recent past someone had decided to brighten the ancient corridors of the University by painting them, having some vague notion that Learning Should Be Fun. It hadn’t worked. It’s a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully the colors are chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow or surgical appliance pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors always smell slightly of boiled cabbage—even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity. ”

“The Kappamaki, a whaling research ship, was currently researching the question: How many whales can you catch in one week?”

“...the little man's total obliviousness to all forms of danger somehow made danger so discouraged that it gave up and went away.”

“When it came down to it and the life-or-death decision had to be made, then it was made by you, because you were the witch. And sometimes it wasn't a decision between a good thing or a bad thing, but a decision between to bad things: no right choices, just... choices.”

“Jaime had never realised that trees made a sound when they grew, and no-one else had realised it either, because the sound is made over hundreds of years in waves of twenty-four hours from peak to peak. Speed it up, and the sound a tree makes is vrooom.”