They'd poisoned me, dammit. Probably to trade my dead body to the barbarians for Wulfgar's safe return. Or maybe just for the fun of it.

Number one rule for fiction: Coincidence can be used to worsen a characters predicament, but never to solve his problems.

Then, early, early, early in the morning-just as in countless Disney films-I heard a rooster crow. But guess what? They don't do it just once.

Mothers are legendary for being able to read the thoughts of their children at just the right moment.

If you don't like vampire games, don't play

There, close enough to spit on--if I'd been a barbarian and inclined to spit--was the dragon.

People always talk about good, fresh country air, but I kept getting wiffs of something that was neither good nor fresh but definitely country.

if Saint Bruce doesn't like your poem, he chops your head off.

Those Grimm brothers," she said with a sigh, "they'll never amount to anything." And she was right because all they ever became was writers.

The wolf sniffed beneath the door to be sure this was a human cottage. The scent was undeniable. No pigs, except in bacon form. The wolf thought bacon form was a very sensible way for pigs to behave.

Giannine--What are they going to do: smack me on the head with a pamplet?

....With pulleys and ropes and time to plan one could move anything. Now that she thought of it, why couldn’t anyone do anything he or she wished, given the tools and the time.

Americans are not renowned for having a sense of irony.

One of the most important pieces of advice that I have learned is to listen to your customers. They will be able to tell you how your business is doing and what direction you need to go in.

True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you.

i told you he'd freak out, she siad. didn't i? ah, the i told you so, jace said. always a classy move

Frying gives cooks numerous ways of concealing what appeared the day before and in a pinch facilitates sudden demands, for it takes little more time to fry a four-pound carp than to boil an egg.

The violence or the vaudeville style of comedy is a technique all by itself. You get up there, and you are a comedian, and you're doing one thing. That is, you're going to make the audience laugh.

My teacher said once that every man faces seven enemies in his lifetime. Sickness, hunger, betrayal, envy, greed, old age, and then death.

Knowledge is like fire 'cause it breaks down things so you can see what they truly are. It's like how a fire breaks your body down to carbon.

I've had a lot of struggles and I would be in a lot of trouble, I think, if I wasn't a Christian.