“He was a gentle and sensitive soul, and therefore had a short temper, which is why he went straight after everything with an ax…”

“When danger reared its ugly head, He bravely turned his tail and fled.”

“The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.”

“Oh, Hazel is awesome,” Don Said. “She’s so nice! All the other campers are like ‘Go away Don.’ But she’s like ‘Please go away, Don.’ I love her!”

“Corrival looked around. ‘So is this it? Is everyone here? Erskine, maybe you should start the ball rolling. I have places to go and things to do.”Me?’ Ravel asked. ‘Why do I have to start it? You’re the most respected mage here. You start it, or Skulduggery.’Skulduggery shook his head. ‘I can’t start it. I don’t like most of these people. I might start shooting.”

“You’re a very difficult person to manipulate, you know.””Nonsense,” he said. “You just have to promise me that I won’t have to do a thing, and then I’ll do anything you want.””Anything?””Anything that doesn’t require doing anything.””That’s nothing, then.””Is it?””Yes.””Well, that’s something.”

“Something about telling that story made my gut grow back together.”What?”Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud.”That’s who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.”The people who’ve been in your secret hiding places.”The people you bite your thumb in front of.”Hi.”Hi.”…”…”Wow. My first Lindsey.”My second Colin.”That was fun. Let’s try it again.”Sold.”…”…”…”…”

“I hate when people say ‘I see’. It doesn’t mean anything and I think it’s hostile. Whenever anyone tells me ‘I see’ I think they’re really saying ‘Fuck you’.”

“He held up his index finger. ‘Rule one: in any dispute between mates, the male is always to blame, even when he is clearly blameless. Rule two’—his middle finger joined the first—’whenever in doubt, refer to rule one.”

“One can never have enough socks”

“And what have I done?” What? WHAT?…You’ve stolen them.” With that, Cornelia fled, but Buttercup understood; she knew who “them” was. The boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattledskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed BOYS.”

“Fine, but if you get yourself killed I reserve the right to flush your ashes down the toilet while I sing the theme from Titanic.”

“They said I was a valued customer, now they send me hate mail.”

“I was conceived because it would be good for my House to have an heir and because my parents’ genes ticked the right set of boxes. You were probably conceived because your parents loved each other.””According to our mother,” Bern said, “he was conceived because she was too wasted to remember a rubber.”Mad Rogan stopped chewing.”I was conceived because my mother skipped bail. Her boyfriend at the time threatened to call the cops on her so she had to do something to keep him from doing it,” Bern said helpfully.Awesome. Just the right kind of information to share.”Aunt Giselea isn’t the best mother,” I said. “There’s one in every family.”

“She had been a teenager once, and she knew that, despite the apparent contradictions, a person’s teenage years lasted well into their fifties.”