It was Italy after all. People probably hit each other all the time.

That was the thing about the world: it wasn’t that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn’t expect.

“Look, I forget how things work sometimes. All right? Or not so much how but why. Why people say hello, why they take baths, why they wear clothes, read books, smile, talk, eat. All those human things.”

He pointed to the map. “This you can make perfect. That—” He shuddered. “It’s just a mess.”
“But the map isn’t real. So sure, maybe it’s perfect, but what’s the point?”
“Maps don’t make you seasick.”

If this was madness it was an entirely new kind of madness, as yet undocumented in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. She had nerdophrenia. She was dorkotic.

Julia had been very very good for a very long time, and the funny thing about that was, if you’re too good too much of the time, people start to forget about you.

She’d always liked Quentin, basically. He was sarcastic and spookily smart and, on some level, basically a kind person who just needed a ton of therapy and maybe some mood-altering drugs.

They’d never been as good a couple as they looked—he wasn’t a real bona fide nerd, just nerd-friendly, nerd-compatible, and you could only explain your Gödel, Escher, Bach references so many times before it starts to be a problem. Pretty soon he was going to figure out that she wasn’t role-playing a sexy depressed goth chick, she had actually become a sexy depressed goth chick.

Something small but heavy fell off Fogg's desk with a clunk. He bent to retrieve it: a silver statue of a bird that seemed to be twitching.
"Poor little thing," he said, petting it with his large hands. "Someone tried to change it into a real bird, but it got stuck in between. It thinks it's alive, but it's much too heavy to fly."

Ей это доставляло безумное удовольствие. Обмакнув ногу в водоем плохого поведения, она сочла температуру как раз подходящей. Когда ведешь себя хорошо слишком долго, люди начинают о тебе забывать.

Квентин, жадно впивая запахи опилок и краски, чувствовал, что сам возвращается к жизни. Окончательно он, правда, не умирал, но и вполне живым тоже не был.

- Ты хочешь сказать, - медленно произнес Квентин, - что это прекрасное и могущественное существо выглядит так потому, что мои смертные глаза неспособны постичь его истинное великооепие.

• Да нет, мы думаем, что они реально так выглядят.

Я, конечно, тут же запал. Не иначе, думаю, русская, дочка отбывающего срок олигарха. Кто ещё, кроме новой русской, может позволить жить здесь, нося вот это на голове.

Дракон, живущий в Темзе, будто бы писал музыку для «Пинк Флойд», когда Сид Баррет ушел, но это опять-таки не доказано.

Магия -это вам не битва за популярность.

Дичь надо выбирать с осторожностью-вдруг поймаешь,-изрекла Джулия

Careful what you hunt,” Julia said, “lest you catch it.