If killing folk ever starts to right, you’ve a worse kind of problem. Guilt can sting, but you should be thankful for it.’‘Thankful?’‘Guilt is a luxury reserved for those still breathing and with no unbearable pain, cold or hunger demanding all their fickle attention. Long as guilt’s your big problem, girl...things can’t be that bad.

Is it gold?’ asked the lad.‘Copper,’ she lied, since gold is apt to turn unpleasant meetings into deadly ones.

You can’t understand! You’re not...a man.’‘Had I been confused on that point, it was put beyond doubt when I pushed you out of my womb. Have you any notion how much you weighed as a baby? Spend two days shitting an anvil we’ll talk again.

I am a bottomless well of revelation but cannot force the ignorant to drink.

Aye, well, one person’s mad is another’s remarkable.

In case you never noticed, bards have a habit of dressing things up. There is a fine living, d’ya see, in songs about deep-wise witches, but in shitty idiots, less.

War?’‘It’s when a fight gets so big almost no one comes out of it well.