“The duty of the inn-keeper,is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirtysheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty smallpurses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling familiesrespectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the childclean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimney-corner,the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattressand the truss of straw; to know how much the shadow uses up themirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five hundred thousand devils, tomake the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dogeats!”

“The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of robbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by means of windows even admit the light and with a lamp lengthen out the day.”

“Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.”

“But they know about us, they know,the four corners, and the chairs nearby us.Discerning shadows also know,and even the table keeps quiet.”

“What if there's a fire?" Glenna said sweetly, and Cian merely smiled. "Then I guess you'd better open a window, and fly.”

“A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.”