listen, a goad's anything that provokes or incites an enemy---let me have a go: cursed deamon! you have met your end! the shivering fire awaits you! i shall spread your vile essance across this hall like... um, like margarine, a very think layer of it...---ye-es... im not sure he'll pick up on that analogy. never mind, keep going.

I rather think he knew anyway.

Thus, those with long and glittering careers (e.g. me) tend to look down on those (e.g. Ascobol) whose names have been unearthed more recently, and haven't amassed so many fine achievements.

That's usually how they start, the young ones. Meaningless waffle.

There was a devotion to detail here that could only come with genuine affection, perhaps even with love.

When I set out from the boy's attic window, my head was so full of competing plans and complex stratagems that I didn't look where I was going and flew straight into a chimney.Something symbolic in that. It's what fake freedom does for you.

John Mandrake was an attractive young man, and the scent of power hung about him, sweet and intoxicating, like honeysuckle in the evening air.

Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.

Freedom is an illusion. It always comes at a price.