Castle Roogna

Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done—that's courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward.

By all means. Swords have ever been the best servants of crazy men.

It is not how long one lives, but how well one lives that is important.

Dor wondered whether, if he should ever happen to be a ghost for eight hundred years, zombies might begin to look good to him. He doubted it.

Dor shook his head. Such mysteries were beyond his fathoming. All he could do was...what he could do.

Nuts grow on trees?” the spider inquired dubiously.

If a thing could not be accomplished honestly, probably it wasn't worth accomplishing at all.

The flea chomped him hard on the left ear. Dor bashed at it—and boxed his ear. The pain was brief but intense.

the goblins were chanting, “One two three four, Kill two three four, One two three four, Kill two three four,” on and on endlessly.

Meanwhile the other monsters were busy. The winged horse was rearing and stomping; the rabbits were gnawing into legs; the double-headed eagle was plucking eyeballs neatly from their sockets and swallowing them whole, the satyr was— Dor stared for a moment in amazement, then forced his gaze away. He had never imagined killing men that way.

The Zombie Master, a bachelor, had a good store of provisions but evidently survived mainly on those that required least effort to prepare: cheese balls, fried eggs from the friers that nested on the rafters, hot dogs from the dogwood that grew just inside the moat, and shrimp from the shrimp plants in the courtyard.

Stay out of this, dodo!” she snapped. “What do you know about it?” Dor spread his hands. How did he get into arguments he was trying to avoid? “Nothing. I can’t grow a thing.” “You will when you’re a man,” Grundy muttered.

A man is only the man he seems to be. Inside, where no one sees, he may be a mass of gnawing worms of doubt and ire and grief. ... No challenge is easy. The measure of the challenge a man rises to at need is the measure of the man.