Stardust

it was a deceptive blankness, the blankness of a rock face that one only realizes cannot be climbed when one is halfway up, and there is no longer any way down

“How d’you like your baths?” she asked, solicitously, “warm, hot, or boil-a-lobster?”

“You are young, and in love,” said Primus. “Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”

“I am the most miserable person who ever lived,” he said to the Lord Primus, when they stopped to feed the horses feedbags of damp oats.
“You are young, and in love,” said Primus. “Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”

(Fairy Tales, as G.K. Chesterton once pointed out, are not true. They are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated.)

“You may call me Morwanneg,” said the witch instead. It was, she reflected, almost a joke (for Morwanneg means wave of the sea, and her true name was long since drowned and lost beneath the cold ocean)

You may call me Morwanneg,” said the witch instead. It was, she reflected, almost a joke (for Morwanneg means wave of the sea, and her true name was long since drowned and lost beneath the cold ocean).

How very bland this world does look by day. And how dull.”

Why drag her into your foolishness?”

“Love,” he explained.

She looked at him with eyes the blue of the sky. “I hope you choke on it,” she said, flatly

The usual. Cat’s breath and fish-scales and moonlight on a mill-pond, melted and smithied and forged by the dwarfs. You’ll be needin’ it to bring your star back with you.”