“She was not, herself, hugely in favor of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn't exactly difficult. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they'd been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they'd got the label which said "mother", everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said "child"...”

“Most of the members of the convent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They'd been brought up to it, and weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow. Anyway, being brought up as a Satanist tended to take the edge off it. It was something you did on Saturday nights.And the rest of the time you simply got on with life as best you could, just like everyone else.”

“On the dresser was a row of blue-and-white jars that weren't very useful for anything. They'd been left to her mother by an elderly aunt, and she was proud of them because they looked nice but were completely useless. There was little room on the farm for useless things that looked nice, so they were treasured.”

“I thought we used to kill rats?" he said, as if he wasn't quite certain anymore."Yes, but you see, sir, this is the future," said Maurice."Is it?" said Mr. Schlummer. "Really? I always wondered when the future was going to happen. Oh, well. Cats talk now, too? Well done! Got to move with the, mm, the...things that move, obviously. Wake me up when they bring the tea in.”

“If women were as good as men they'd be a lot better!”

“But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats.”

“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!”