Sublime

His seven-year-old brain fires and rewires, building arborized axons, dendrites, those tiny spreading trees.

‘Oh good,’ he said. He put the computer to sleep, stood up, and then, for no reason at all, he picked Coraline up, which he had not done for such a long time, not since he had started pointing out to her she was much too old to be carried, and he carried her into the kitchen.

Only elves and trolls had survived the coming of Man to the Discworld; the elves because they were altogether too clever by half, and the trollen folk because they were at least as good as humans at being nasty, spiteful and greedy.

The world of books is not a collection of random units of self-interest, but a living ecology.

hair was wriggling like lazy snakes on a warm day.

I’m not frightened, she told herself, and as she thought it she knew that it was true.

Reflections, a book of essays and non-fiction by Diana Wynne Jones.

“I want to tell you something,” I said. Samantha nodded. “Okay. But I don’t think it will help you much.” “What’s that?” “I’m pretty sure I don’t exist,” she said.