“I think we ought to live happily ever after.”
“You must admit I have a right to live in a pigsty if I want.”
“Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all.”
“If I give you a hint and tell you it's a hint, it will be information.”
“I think we ought to live happily ever after," and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more hair-raising than any storybook made it sound, though she was determined to try. "It should be hair-raising," added Howl.
"And you'll exploit me," Sophie said.
"And then you'll cut up all my suits to teach me.”
“I'm going up to my room now, where I may die.”
“Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet.
"I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.”
“Go to bed, you fool," Calcifer said sleepily. "You're drunk."
"Who, me?" said Howl. "I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober." He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him.”
“Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!”
“You've no right to walk into people's castles and take their guitars.”
“It is quite a risk to spank a wizard for getting hysterical about his hair.”
“In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”
“I'm delirious. Spots are crawling before my eyes."
"Those are spiders.”
“I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.”
“I feel ill," [Howl] announced. "I'm going to bed, where I may die.”
“My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.”
“I've got a hangover."
"No, you hit your head on the floor."
"I can't stay. I've got to rescue that fool Sophie.”
“I make that four horses and ten men just to get rid of one old woman. What did you do to the King?”
“More about Howl? Sophie thought desperately. I have to blacken his name! Her mind was such a blank that for a second it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! 'Well, he's fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical,' she said. 'Half the time I think he doesn't care what happens to anyone as long as he's alright--but then I find out how awfully kind he's been to someone. Then I think he's kind just when it suits him--only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don't know, Your Majesty. He's a mess.”
“So you were going to rescue the Prince! Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?"
"Not likely! I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it!”
“She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.”
“By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. "I'll make some hot buttered toast," she said. "Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy??" Howl asked. "Make toast!”
“That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.”
“Look. Survey. Inspect. My hair is ruined! I look like a pan of bacon and eggs!”
“Things are going round and round in my head--or maybe my head is going round and round in things.”
“A fickle heart is the only constant in this world”
“Meanwhile a certain amount of moaning and groaning was coming from upstairs. Sophie kept muttering to the dog and ignored it. A loud, hollow coughing followed, dying away into more moaning. Crashing sneezes followed the coughing, each one rattling the window and all the doors. Sophie found those harder to ignore, but she managed. Poot-pooooot! went a blown nose, like a bassoon in a tunnel. The coughing started again, mingled with moans. Sneezes mixed with the moans and the coughs, and the sounds rose to a crescendo in which Howl seemed to be managing to cough, groan, blow his nose, sneeze, and wail gently all at the same time. The doors rattled, the beams in the ceiling shook, and one of Calcifer’s logs rolled off onto the hearth.
“All right, all right, I get the message!” Sophie said, dumping the log back into the grate. “It’ll be green slime next”.”
“Wizard Howl," said Wizard Suliman. "I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn't dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.”
“I encourage you to accept that you may not be able to see a path right now, but that doesn't mean it's not there.”
“The most crucial truths are always rejected before they're accepted. " he says gazing out of space."It's one of our greatest human flaws: arrogance. We look up and dare to assume we know, when the universe is unknowable.”
“I lost someone I loved before, and it changed me. I gave up someone I loved before, and it crushed me. I know that when you leave, Liis, however it goes down...it will end me.”
“He was always doing that these days. Everything he saw became a symbol of his own existence, from a rabbit caught in headlights to raindrops racing down a window-pane. Perhaps it was a sign that he was going to become a poet or a philosopher: the kind of person who, when he stood on the sea-shore, didn't see waves breaking on a beach, but saw the surge of human will or the rhythms of copulation, who didn't hear the sound of the tide but heard the eroding roar of time and the last moaning sigh of humanity fizzing into nothingness. But perhaps it was a sign, he also thought, that he was turning into a pretentious wanker.”
“Do the laws against sexual assault not apply to strippers? To girlfriends?”
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