“It was impossible for him to get bored. He just didn't have the imagination.”

“He couldn't remember having been seventeen; it was something that must have happened to him while he was busy. But it made him feel like he imagined it felt like when you were seventeen, which was like having a permanent red-hot vest on under your skin.”

“And gears," said Anathema. "My bike didn't have gears. I'm sure my bike didn't have gears."Crowley leaned over to the angel. "Oh lord, heal this bike," he whispered sarcastically."I'm sorry, I just got carried away," hissed Aziraphale.”

“Some people have inspired whole countries to great deeds because of the power of their vision. And so could he. Not because he dreams about marching hordes, or world domination, or an empire of a thousand years. Just because he thinks that everyone’s really decent underneath and would get along just fine if only they made the effort, and he believes that so strongly it burns like a flame which is bigger than he is. He’s got a dream and we’re all part of it, so that it shapes the world around him. And the weird thing is that no one wants to disappoint him. It’d be like kicking the biggest puppy in the universe. It’s a kind of magic.”

“And that was fine, except that she didn't have any old friends anymore. Kids back home who'd been friendly were now...respectful, because of the hat. There was a kind of wall, as if she'd grown up and they hadn't. What could they talk about? She'd been to places they couldn't even imagine. Most of them hadn't even been to Twoshirts, which was only half a day away. And this didn't worry them at all. They were going to do the jobs their fathers did, or raise children like their mothers did. And that was fine, Tiffany added hurriedly to herself. But they hadn't decided. It was just happening to them, and they didn't notice.”

“That bit where that lad sprang backwards right across the room with them axes in his hands was impressive, though.""Yeah.""You didn't ought to have stuck your sword out like that, I thought.""He's learned an important lesson.""It won't do him much good now where he's gone.”

“He'd always known that the world was an interesting place, and his imagination had peopled it with pirates and bandits and spies and astronauts and similar. But he'd also had a nagging suspicion that, when you seriously got right down to it, they were all just things in books and didn't properly exist anymore.”