“When last I checked, you were a sorcerer, not a Jedi."
"You've seen Star Wars?"
"Seen it and denounced it."
"You've denounced Star Wars?"
She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Hollywood should not glorify witches."
"I think you've missed the point..."
"I also denounce Harry Potter."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Because..."
"...because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches."
"Oda, what do you do for fun?"
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humor, "I denounce things.”
“He glanced up as I entered, and for a moment, looked almost surprised.
"Mr. Swift!"
"Ta-da!" I exclaimed weakly.
"You're still..."
"Still not dead. That's me. It's my big party trick, still not being dead, gets them every time.”
“Curiosity may have killed the cat, but paranoia was what tied it up in a sack and buried it in wet concrete.”
“Men don't ask other men if they're getting home OK, they just assume that beneath the frail, weak exterior lurks a muscle-building kung fu master fearless of ever being mugged.”
“Paranoia seems more reasonable when you've got twelve stitches in your side.”
“We were beginning to understand why, in pre-anaesthetic days, the Bible had stipulated that suicide was a sin. Anything other than the prospect of eternal damnation, and the human race would probably have done away with itself at the first sign of the dentist.”
“Someone says 'inauguration' in my line of work, and you can just bet there'll be freaky shit. It's like quests. You get told to 'go forth and seek the travelcard of destiny' and you know, I mean, you seriously know that it won't have just been left down the back of the sofa.”
“I was the apprentice of Robert James Bakker. I'm sure you've heard of him. I am a sorcerer. I was there when Bakker died. We... made it happen. I too have met death, and did not have to peel the bones away from my chest to survive the encounter. I am also, and incidentally, the Midnight Mayor, the blue electric angels, the fire in the wire, the song in the telephones, and we are having a bad week. Be smart; fear us.”
“We ran, as graceful as a burst beetroot.”
“I got dressed. You can't be Midnight Mayor in your underpants.”
“Whoever had said in the guidebooks that the bum bag was a sensible device against theft had lied; no single item of dressware ever invented cried out "mug me" more than a pouch of zip-up plastic suspended by your groin.”
“Always be polite to possible murderers: that was the twenty-four-hour-shopping philosophy.”
“I looked at Judith. "This sounds strange, but I don't suppose you saw three mad women with a cauldron of boiling tea pass by this way?"
"No," she replied. The polite voice of reasonable people scared of exciting the madman.
"Flash of light? Puff of smoke? Erm..." I tried to find a polite way of describing the symptoms of spontaneous teleportation without using the dreaded "teleportation" word. I failed. I slumped back into the sand. What kind of mystic kept a spatial vortex at the bottom of their cauldrons of tea anyway?”
“There was almost a flicker of humanity in the man. The kind of human who pulled wings off flies as a kid, but still human.”
“The armored men counted to three, then burst inside the flat, shouting impressive things like "clear!" or "go go go!" as they did. Oda said, "Gum?"
"You chew gum?"
"No. but I always carry it, to use as barter when visiting prisons."
"Do you see how I'm not asking you?"
"Smart.”
“The majority of the employees here are civilians," explained my Alderman guide/protector/companion/would-be-executioner as we strode without a word to the security guards through the foyer towards the lifts. "They conduct themselves within perfectly standard financial services and regulations. There is one specialist suboperational department catering to the financing of more...unusual extra-capital ventures, and the executive assets who operate it have to undergo a rigorous level of training, psyche evaluation, personality assessment, and team operational analyses."
We stared at him, and said, "We barely understood the little words."
"No," he replied, "I didn't think you would.”
“But it's not healthy!” replied the Hag. “A mortal and a god sharing the same flesh?”
“You know, this isn't why we're here. I can get abuse pretty much wherever.”
“Yeah,” sighed the Maid, “but I bet a tenner I can make you cry in half a minute.”
“You've seen Star Wars?'
'Seen it and denounced it.'
'You've denounced Star Wars?'
She looked me straight in the eye and said, 'Hollywood should not glorify witches.'
'I think you've missed the point...'
'I also denounced Harry Potter.'
'Really?'
'Yes.'
'Because...'
'...because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches.'
'Oda, what do you do for fun?'
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humour, 'I denounce things.”
“The whole calamity would be in one of those police reports that D. B. Sinclair and his "concerned citizens" filed carefully under "T" for "Things" at the back of a locked filing cabinet in the vehicle-licensing centre a day before a bonfire got accidentally out of control.”
“Never argue with the surreal; there’s no winning against irrationality.”
“We burn because of the beauty in the burning, because life is precious, extraordinary, and we would live as if we were on fire with the brightness of it.”
“Even if you’ve no idea where you’re going, you have to look like you do. It’s what keeps the locals different from the strangers.”
“You read—seen—Lord of the Rings?” “Yessss…” “Ever wondered why they didn’t just get the damn eagles to go drop the One Ring into the volcano, since they seemed so damn nifty at getting into Mordor anyway?”
“I like walking. Each step is a thought without words, a thought without words is a thought without blame, without retribution, without consequence.”
“Coincidence is usually mentioned only when something good happens. Whenever it’s something bad, it’s easier to blame someone, something.”
“The mind forgets pain, the physical sensation of pain. It doesn’t forget terror.”
“Count your blessings, my father always said. It shames you, to count yours by the hardships of other people.”
“He looked as shocked as if I'd asked him to masturbate in front of me.”
“Behold the Drojim Palace," King Urgit said extravagantly to Sadi, "the hereditary home of the House of Urga."
"A most unusual structure, You Majesty," Sadi murmured.
"That's a diplomatic way to put it." Urgit looked critically at his palace. "It's gaudy, ugly, and in terribly bad taste. It does, however, suit my personality almost perfectly.”
“So love is about finding the right person to hurt you?”
“Pretty much.”
“This place does not feel like my country. It feels like countries I have read about where things are very bad. It feels, in fact, like exactly the kind of thing we were protesting against, but we thought it was elsewhere. It is not heartening to find that it has come to us.”
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