Recently added

“They were pretty friendly, for dancing skeletons,” Isaac said, waving after them.

“If I’ve learned one thing,” Alice said, “it’s not to judge by appearances.”

“When you’re as old as I am,” Ending said, “one’s nature is largely a product of habit.”

“He saved me, I saved him,” Alice said. “The usual, really. What else are friends for?”

“If you ask me,” the cat said, “friends ought to keep you out of situations where you need saving.”

He was, of course, cheating her, that was what lawyers were for.

Maybe that’s wisdom, seeing things that are obvious.

“But didn’t that hurt?”

Dex shrugged. “Pain is an illusion. The body is only a clay vessel holding the immortal essence of the soul, so it is a mistake to attach any import to the difficulties it may encounter. In fact, the whole episode reinforced my fundamental understanding of—“ She caught Alice’s expression. “Yes. It hurt quite a lot.”

“Well?” the cat said. “Are we going to walk all the way there?”

“You’re going to get fat if you keep being so lazy.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. For cats, being fat that just means that you’re winning.”

Do not boast to me in your newspapers of the thousands of tons of bombs you have let loose at random on the unhappy land of Germany, because I will tell you that you have let loose those bombs on me, on your church, on yourselves and on your God. Tell me, rather, how you have wept for the single German soldier you have been forced to kill as he stood before you armed and dangerous, and I will say, you are my defender and the defender of my church and my England.

At that age, Alice had grasped the idea that some things in books were real, and others were not.

After the cousins came the accountants, who were more open in their appraisals and didn’t bother with Alice at all, and after the accountants, like a Biblical plague building up to a big finish, came the lawyers.

Respect for the truth does not require one to take seriously ideas simply because they are popular or backed by influential people. Once it has become clear that a proposal makes no contribution to our understanding, we are not compelled by tolerance to give it further attention.

Kill, if you must, because in our weakness and in our error, we have found no other road to peace, but kill remorsefully, kill with a sense of sorrow, kill with economy for the immortal souls who leave this life in battle, carry mercy in your cartridge cases, forgiveness in your knapsacks, kill without revenge, because vengeance is not yours but the Lord’s, kill, knowing that each life you spend makes your life that much the poorer.