Diana Wynne Jones

"If you stood up and told the truth in the wrong way, it was not true any longer, though it might be as powerful as ever."

"The only good Dorig is a dead Dorig."

"One does not want glory accepted as a matter of course. One wants to shock and astonish people with it."

"Adara was impressed. "How do you know that?" "I learnt it," said Hathil. "It pays to learn things."

"She was one of those who could talk and talk and talk. Gair listened to her harsh voice - "Just like a duck," Ayna described it - and hoped she would lose the argument. But Adara once said Kasta had never lost an argument in her life. She just talked everyone insensible."

"Look here," Gerald said, "what do you think of Giants?" There was the kind of pause that happens when people do not like to say what they really think."

"Over scones round the kitchen table, it emerged that Aunt Mary thought Ayna, Gair and Ceri came from Malaysia. Brenda looked at their faces and breathed in half a scone. While Gerald was pounding Brenda on the back, Ceri leaned back from the vibrating table and looked at Aunt Mary limpidly in the eye. "Im afraid we dont remember Masaylia at all." "Malaysia!" hissed Ayna. "Or that either," said Ceri."

"This is a very old argument. The greatest happiness of the greatest number. If you think about it, youll find it always works out that a few suffer for the good of the rest." "In stories," Gair agreed hopelessly. "brave men die defending the rest. But this isnt like that!" "Call it the modern version," Mr Claybury suggested kindly."

"There was a little white statue there. Now Im not artistic. I saw it was of a fellow with no clothes on - I always wonder why its Art to take your clothes off: they never put in the goose pimples - and this fellow was wrapped in chains. He didnt look as if he was enjoying himself, and small wonder."

"You wouldnt believe how lonely you get."

"Unprintable things!" I said - only I didnt say that. I really said them."

"Things we are accustomed to regard as myth or fairy story are very much present in people’s lives. Nice people behave like wicked stepmothers. Every day."