"Pigs possess a certain native intelligence and common sense by and large missing from our greater poets. When despair lays its clammy paws across their fevered porcine brows, they do not slump about composing sonnets; they take action."

"Accidents happen; clothing does not."

"Some people just don't stop to think; they're too busy swallowing nightmares whole."

"Time had passed. It will, given half the chance."

"There are always miracles where there are children, and fascination for any tale that opens their eyes to marvels, whether or not they are sensible marvels. Even a pig knows that."

"Here is what I like to do: Pretend I know what grownups are talking about."

"Sex is like the pursuit of wild mushrooms: Both are fascinating hobbies, both can prove most addictive, and both for the most part yield tasty results. And yet, for the novice, there exists always the chance of making that one fatal mistake. Ah, but if one lives, one learns!"

"Talent is no doxy to follow only where gold jingles. Even in the poorest hovels artists can be born as often as cutpurses."

"There is a vast difference between innocence and stupidity."

"In for a lamb, in for a ram, as the sheep-stealers say just before we hang them."

"Power can command wealth but wealth can’t always command power."

"Don’t mistake gratitude for love."

"You may hear the priests claim that revenge belongs to the gods and should never be the property of man. Leave it to the gods to hog the best bits of life for themselves. When you have your enemies skewered, I think it would be wasteful not to stay and watch them writhe. I would even call it impolite. I value courtesy."

"I think the pampered highborn like the fantasy of equality."

"Little ones, if any mortal under the age of ninety ever tells you, “I always learned my lessons the first time, before it was too late,” mark that person well. He lies."

"Scratch a minstrel, find a pimp!"

"I knew the Cardinal Rule of Experiments from Master Urion’s house: The wise mage never tampers with the order of things unless his circumstances are such that the worst possible result of the experiment will be no more disastrous than not performing the experiment at all."

"Monkeys and mortals are attracted to sparkly things. What makes us different from the apes is that we sometimes crack the shiny shell and see there’s nothing inside."

"If we could all pick our fathers there might be ten men on earth who would have families."

"Children, the gods call us when they choose, but not even the priests are eager to answer."

"Better a live whore than a dead virgin!"

"“I won’t do it,” said Barti. “Then we’ll kill you,” replied Aliska, who had grasped the fundamentals of religious debate pretty quickly."

"Dignity and self-assurance are everything to a woman, especially a naked one."

"For magic wears a thousand masks, but love is magic of its own and wears a myriad more."

"“A mistake, however small,” said the dead wizard, “can be more deadly than a sword.”"

"To shrug was in effect his philosophy of life. Either you had the answer to a problem or you didn’t. If you did, bueno, you did. If you didn’t, you shrugged and waited to see if someone would come up with the answer for you."

"She is as shallow as a leaf holding rainwater."

"Sanchi could use money. It was the green and golden bridge to everything he wanted."

"She hadn’t been alive very long, but already she had an extensive list of things she hated, and topping it was being told what to do."

"Her instinct told her no, yet could she trust instincts? They were the products of man’s natural state, and there were few things as far removed from the natural as New York."

"Whoever you are, you’re too weird even for New York, and that’s saying something."

"All acts leave imprints of themselves on the worlds of being, sweet lady. Our loving will leave its little mark, and our quarrel. But nothing leaves so strong a print as evil, and the ghosts of great evils return time after time to reenact their tragedies."

"But we had to go believe a prophecy instead of our own eyes, elf! There’s no good ever came of listening to wizards. Half of them are crazy and the other half are so old they sound crazy. And we listened! We’re the craziest of the lot."

"Forgive me for a lie, but the dead fight with the weapons they have."

"She had majored in Philosophy at Vassar. It wasn’t the sort of thing one got over easily."

"No one missed the news in his house. Papi insisted on that. He hated ignorance, and book-ignorance was only one kind. The kid had to know that the world wasn’t nothing but half-hour time slots where everyone gets rich and happy between the commercials."

"She had seen too much not to realize that there are some worlds where a sword is not a sword, and where the power of magic breathes fate into a blade."

"Parricide can be hard to explain to the neighbors."

"Only a corpse could have sounded more bored."

"“I did warn you.” “When cats listen to humans, I’ll listen to cats,” Sandy replied lightly."

"“How can you stand against magic?” the Welsh girl cried. Sandy smiled. “You forget,” she said. “I’m a lawyer.”"

"“You mean…I’m not a coward after all?” “Rest easy. You’re just a neurotic like the rest of us.”"

"Anything sounds legitimate in Latin."

"They’re never going to agree on one damned thing. You can’t make reasonable human beings out of committee members."

"Even his tie—that most treacherous of sartorial shoals, that scrap of fabric upon which many an otherwise sane man lavishes the worst lunacies of misguided self-expression and is thereby wrecked, fashionably speaking—even that was a demure navy-and-burgundy silk rep, with a faint stripe of yellow as discreet as the finest assassin."

"And the things mortals have taught me! They hate in the name of a god of love! They make war in the name of peace! They fancy themselves in the lords of creation because they are able to destroy it all!"

"That is the real paradox you mortals pose: the faith in love you sometimes keep for no reason anyone can see."

"Fools are always at the bottom of the food chain."

"Elena had never managed to develop any patience for smartasses. Her first impulse was still to kick them right where they were smartest."

"Gods do not explain their cruelties."