Tom Holt

“It was irritating to have one's physical shortcomings pointed out quite so plainly twice in one evening, once by a beautiful girl and once by a dying badger.”

“In fact, as they will be delighted to tell you, Taunton is no longer a one-horse town these days,they have a bicycle as well.”

“I'm an archaeologist,' said Hildy. 'I dig up the past.'The King raised an eyebrow. 'You mean you refresh old quarrels and keep alive old grievances? Surely not.”

“The King rose slowly to his feet and beckoned to the wizard, who had been sitting outside the circle of the firelight, apparently, trying to find a spell that would make a beer-can magically refill itself.”

“I spy,' said the first mate, 'with my little eye, something beginning with W.”

“Be my guest,' Vanderdecker said. You can watch a master liar at work, if you don't mind being an accomplice.”

“At any given time, ninety-nine-point-nine-five per cent of the human race are a confounded nuisance”

“In the beginning was the Word. Nobody knows what it actually was, although it would be nice to think that it was 'Sorry.”

“The best definition of an immortal is someone who hasn't died yet.”

“Jason squared his shoulders, drew the Sword of - I couldn't give a toss what it's supposed to be called, he said to himself, I shall call it Freckles - and took one step forward.”

“'How many spectral warriors does it take to change a light-bulb? One, and a stepladder. At a pinch, of course, he could stand on a chair.'”

“The knight raises both eyebrows, like someone by Burne-Jones who's just trodden on something sharp. 'I am Prince Boamund, eldest son of King -'Boamund looks worried. Where he comes from you can take advanced falconry, or you can take spelling; not both. Guess which one he opted for. - c. 1”

“Boamund scratches his head. Imagine a knight by Alma-Tadema who's somehow managed to fall off the picture and is wondering how to get back in without breaking the glass.”

“That's it?' Boamund said.'Basically, yes,' the hermit replied. 'I've left out Helmut von Moltke and the Peace of Nikolsburg, and maybe I skated over the Benelux customs union a bit, but I think you've got the essentials there. Anything you're not sure about, you can look up in the book.' - c. 1”

“Between the town of Giles, to the north of the Tomkinson Range, and Forrest in the Nullarbor Plain, lies the Great Victorian Desert. It is hot, arid, desolate and merciless; and whatever the Creator had in mind when He made it that way, it most certainly wasn't human beings.It's a really awful place to be if you've got toothache.”

“Ronnie Bosch sat in his studio, stared long and hard at his drawing board, and groaned.”

“'Genies rarely have nightmares, for the same reason that elephants don't usually worry about being trampled underfoot. With the possible exception of bottles, there's nothing in the cosmos large enough or malicious enough to frighten them, or stupid enough to try.'”

“'...and we have already seen how insurance is like a pyramid - (Huge, incomprehensible, hideously expensive, completely unnecessary and specifically designed only to be of benefit to you once you're dead?)'”

“'He didn't smile - he was from Yorkshire, after all - but in some inner chamber of his heart he was satisfied.'”

“'Tact comes as naturally to full-bore handguns as, say, ice-skating to African elephants, but there comes a time when an exceptional individual is prepared to stand up and break the mould.'”

“'Luck, like a Russian car, generally only works if you push it.'”

“Besides, [Saint] George pointed out, dragons burn towns and demand princesses as ransom.The dragons, referring to the Siege of Jerusalem, the Sack of Constantinople and a thousand years of dynastic marriages, said, Look who's talking.”

“[...] the dragon got three cartsful of angry letters from the Pope (which he dismissed as a load of bulls) [...]”

“Here and there a doorway or low arch concealed the occasional mugger, rapist or lawyer.”

“Vote!' [Saint] George rolled his eyes. 'This is an assassination, not a debating society.' - c. 7”

“Like, there's these new fundamentalist religious fanatics, some name like Meek Militant Action. Their aim's to inherit the Earth, provided nobody objects.' - c. 12”

“Good guys is just a fancy way of saying Us. Bad guys is only ever Them.' -”

“Talking to yourself is a sign of madness. Talking to yourself, dead, is class.'”

“If you hadn't noticed, I'm the pub loony around here. This is my turf, and if there's any gibbering to be done, I'm the one who does it. If you want to gibber, find another bar.”

“You want the short version. Okay, then: shit happens. Does that answer all your question? Thought not. Now, if you shut your face and let me tell this my way, we might actually get somewhere. Thank you.”

“You poor suckers [mammals]: you've got all this horrible stuff to get through somehow so obviously there's got to be an incentive, or at least some kind of fix for you to get addicted to. That's love: possibly the sneakiest trick ever played on any variety of life form by a notoriously conniving Universe. You do all these dismal, soul-destroying things because you get attached to each other.”

“I didn't find out she was actually the Queen of the Fey until some time later. Bit of a shock, but I think we could've made a go of it, if she hadn't been so dead set on wiping out the human race.”