The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Wednesdays were the best thing about Atlantis. The middle of the week was a traditional holiday there. Everyone stopped work and celebrated the fact that half the week was over.

Life is too precious to be left to chance

On horseback you feel as if you're moving in time to classical music; a camel seems to progress to the beat of a drum played by a drunk.

A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen-and-a-half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest. A bear must have his secrets, after all; they make him seem attractive and mysterious.

I never trained, however, because I was a spontaneous talent. Practising spoiled my style.

I had dispensed with a rudder on the principal that fate must be given a chance.

It's quite simple, just follow the dotted line," the Planmaker explained. "Don't let any bad idea lead you astray. Don't let them persuade you to take a short cut or take one yourself. Life is a winding path. One sometimes has to make detours. That's my humble opinion, anyway.

People always covet what they themselves do not possess.

Beneath me lay the Lake of Oblivion, above me loomed Insanity.

The written word is redundant on the high seas. Why? Because paper gets wet too easily.

That's the reward for your good deed,' I explained, 'a clear conscience. It really perks you up.

When bad habits become a habit, you have to turn over a new leaf.

Da ist auch noch ein anderer Geruch in der Luft, der Geruch von Feuern, die in der Ferne brennen, mit einem Hauch Zimt darin - so riecht das Abenteuer!

There are times when the truth is the worst possible thing you can come out with.

He wasn't such a bad fellow after all. The rudiments of self-improvement and the intention to achieve it were definitely present.

I know people whose lives have been transformed by a good deed.

You can't beat a good education!

He gave me a look of mingled anticipation, curiosity, and compassion, like a cat with a captive bird in its claws.

...but I was urged on by a courage born of despair.

...I simply wasn't born to remain in the same place for evermore...

It was part of the beauty, but also the tragedy, of this sport that the spectators were the ultimate judges of who sat on the throne.

Few minded what their fellow citizens got up to as long as they themselves were left in peace.

It felt as if a shaft of lightning had gone in through one ear and out the other...Armies of dead men went marching through my head. I heard a noise like a cosmic scream. My brain turned to ice. Then the ice cracked in all directions and disintegrated into tiny particles like snowflakes, and each snowflake was afflicted by a pain of its very own. In the end, everything went black. I found myself looking out into the universe. Seated on a diminutive planet made of glass was a red dwarf who had twelve important messages for me.

WI felt I ought to comment on that, but nothing occurred to me.