It was a fine day by London's standards. Which meant it was a day slightly less likely to suffocate you and poison your lungs.

He wanted a faery. More than anything else in the world. He had already imagined exactly how it should happen. He would set up the invitation, and the next day there would be a petal-winged pisky clinging to the top of his bedpost. It would have a foolish grin on its face, and large ears, and it wouldn’t notice at all that Bartholomew was small and ugly and different from everyone else. But no. Mother had to ruin everything.

The staircase was a mass of rotting wood, carved with such cruel-looking mermaids that Mr. Jelliby was afraid to put his hand on the banister.

It was easy to begin things, easy to end them too, but to make everything in between make sense . . . that was the challenge.

He had an image in his mind of a gaggle of long-necked geese, all done up in petticoats and crinolines, sitting around a stuffy parlor and talking about him.

Once people see you cry, it's like they own part of you. It's like you ripped a hole in yourself, and they saw through whatever armor you had on, got a good long view of all the screaming alien goop underneath.

It was called the Smiling War because it left so many skulls, white and grinning, in the fields.

Maman, warum gehen wir nicht hinunter in den Palast? Wir brauchen doch nicht lange dortzubleiben, ganz bestimmt nicht. Was hat dich dort so erschreckt?"Diesmal antwortete sie. Sie nahm meine Hände in ihre und drückte sie, bis meine Finger knackten. "Die Diener", flüsterte sie. "Sie haben so grausige Gesichter.

Daughter, even if you cannot see the truth of things, even if you are frightened and discouraged, know this: some things just are. You don't have to be sure of them. They don't ask your opinion.

I look up at the painting. It's not even that interesting. Definitely doesn't grab me and shake my brain around like the meadow scene did.