"Growing up is like that, I suppose. The strings fall away and you're left standing on your own."
- Alan Bradley
"As anybody with two older sisters can tell you, a closed door is like a red rag to a bull. It cannot go unchallenged."
"One of the things I dread about becoming an adult is that sooner or later you begin letting sentimentality get in the way of simple logic."
"How could tickling, even though it causes laughter, be at the same time such a vicious form of torture?Sitting on the edge of my bed, I thought it through.I came to the conclusion, at last, that it wa..."
"Although it seems shocking to say so, grief is a funny thing. On the one hand, you're numb, yet on the other, something inside is trying desperately to claw its way back to normal: to pull a funny fac..."
"Magic doesn’t work when you’re sad."
"I did not elaborate, nor did I need to. The human imagination is capable of anything when left on its own to fill in the blanks."
"The vicar's organized a snow-shoveling party.""But why?" I asked.It didn't make sense. If all the roads were closed, what use was it clearing a way to the front door?"Because," said Aunt Felicity's vo..."
"Not to be too dramatic about it, that night I slept the sleep of the damned. I dreamt of turrets and craggy ledges where the windswept rain blew in from the ocean with the odor of violets. A pale woma..."
"I dreamt of turrets and craggy ledges where the windswept rain blew in from the ocean with the odor of violets. A pale woman in Elizabethan dress stood beside my bed and whispered in my ear that the b..."