I'm not afraid of you!' The wombat yelled. 'I saw you get stuck in the washing machine once. Round and round you went! Who's afraid of something that can't defeat a rinse cycle?

Sometimes, magic is like that. It lands on your head like a piano, a stupid, ancient, unfunny joke, and you spend the rest of your life picking sharps and flats out of your hair.

Magic has a logic, like algebra. Once you get to know it, it's easy. If this, then that. You write with a pencil, you don't make frog soup with it.

Don't worry, my little lump of rock. Everybody gets a chance to choose. Or else where would irony come from?

Still life is boring. Never stand still! Jumping bean life!

I shall be as brave as a my Toad, he thought, for my Toad never hides under the bed when she is afraid of lightning or bats. She sticks out her tongue and eats them.

all children are required to attend School, which is like a party to which everyone forgot to bring punch, or hats, or fiddles, and none of the games have good prizes.

Now, in the Kingdom of School, to be asked into another child's room is like being asked inside their heart.

Rules are for those who can't think of a better way.

hit with your fist, not with your finger spread

Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way if justice.

The Internet is really about highly specialized information, highly specialized targeting.

Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he [Henry] looked as if he was aware of it.

For most of my life I had operated under a simple schematic of winning and losing, but cancer was teaching me a tolerance for ambiguities.

I prefer to have some beliefs that don't make logical sense.

Writing fiction means putting a lot of what you believe about the world at risk, because you have to follow your characters.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere.

You might not have a car or a big gold chain, stay true to yourself and things will change