“You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you.”

“And that's what I don't like about magic, Captain. 'cos it's *magic*. You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic! That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic!”

“Oh. I see. People don't want to see what can't possibly exist.”

“Most horses don't walk backwards voluntarily, because what they can't see doesn't exist.”

“Picture a tall, dark figure, surrounded by cornfields...NO, YOU CAN'T RIDE A CAT. WHO EVER HEARD OF THE DEATH OF RATS RIDING A CAT? THE DEATH OF RATS WOULD RIDE SOME KIND OF DOG.Picture more fields, a great horizon-spanning network of fields, rolling in gentle waves...DON'T ASK ME I DON'T KNOW. SOME KIND OF TERRIER, MAYBE....fields of corn, alive, whispering in the breeze...RIGHT, AND THE DEATH OF FLEAS CAN RIDE IT TOO. THAT WAY YOU KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE....awaiting the clockwork of the seasons.METAPHORICALLY.”

“Listen very carefully... listen to everyone and don't say much and think about what they say and how they say it and watch their eyes... it becomes like a big jigsaw, but you're the only one who can see all the pieces. You'll know what they want you to know, and what they don't want you to know, and even what they think no one knows.”

“That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next.”