“The housekeeper had been there that afternoon. I could always tell because the sheets on the bed would be tucked in so tight, trying to get them out was like wrestling an alligator.”

“I wrapped my arms around me as tightly as I could, and stared up at the stars. Had I not been so cold and wanting to escape so badly, I could have stared at them forever: They were amazingly beautiful, so dense and bright. My eyes could get lost up there if I left them looking long enough. [...] They swallowed me up. They were like a hundred thousand tiny candles, sending out hope.”

“Skulduggery stood among the ruins of what had once been a sofa. Valkyrie raised an eyebrow.'I was trying to make up the sofa bed so you could get some rest,' he explained, and pointed to the second sofa across the room. 'Unfortunately, it would appear that that is the sofa bed, and this, apparently, is just a sofa.”

“I’ve wrestled an alligator before. It wasn’t alive, but I still pinned it down. I was trying to impress a woman, and I bet I did, because she went home with another man—but she was smiling, probably wishing he were me.”

“The cake had a trick candle that wouldn't go out, so I didn't get my wish. Which was just that it would always be like this, that my life could be a party just for me.”

“Is there anything more pathetic than a flower that doesn’t get enough sunlight and dies, because it couldn’t get out of bed until four in the afternoon?”