Diana Wynne Jones (1934 – 2011)
English author notable for her fantasy novels for children and adults, as well as a small amount of non-fiction.
"Oh, Lord! He's a weeper!" Grandad said disgustedly. "I wish I'd known. I'd have stayed away."
"A lot of Merlins have cried when they prophesied," Dad pointed out.
"I know. But I don't have to like it, do I?" Grandad retorted.
I was a thoroughly hardened Homeward Bounder. There seemed nothing I didn't know.
Then I ran into Helen. My friendly neighbourhood enemy. There really was nothing like Helen on any world I'd ever been to. I sometimes didn't think she was human at all.
There was a little white statue there. Now I'm not artistic. I saw it was of a fellow with no clothes on - I always wonder why it's Art to take your clothes off: they never put in the goose pimples - and this fellow was wrapped in chains. He didn't look as if he was enjoying himself, and small wonder.
To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.
"Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things."
"It looks as if you need only enter the field for long enough to recognise the bannus and take hold of it. Then you order it to stop."
"Fight my way through a mob of dancing girls and snatch the dulcimer off the leading damsel," Reigner Two said morbidly. "I can just see myself. I think the fools who invented this thing might have thought of a simpler way to stop it. What's wrong with a red switch?"