Quotes from Cressida Cowell

I'm sorry we lied to you, Mother. But the ends justify the means… A fine outcome excuses a bad method… You'll understand when you're older.

ANYONE WHO HAS SKIPPED TO THIS EPILOGUE BEFORE READING THE REST OF THE STORY IS A BIG CHEAT AND SHOULD GO RIGHT BACK TO CHAPTER 1 OR I WILL GET REALLY QUITE UPSET.

The Witch had been aiming straight for her head, intending to tear it off. (Dear little creatures, these Witches, aren't they?)

Slowly, Gobber stood up. Carefully, he removed his helmet from his head, and placed it very gently on the chest of the dead Goliath.

WARNING Any Relationship to any historical fact WHATSOEVER is entirely coincidental. You have been WARNED

The thing is, we are all, in a sense, supper. Walking, talking, breathing suppers, that's what we are. Take you, for instance. YOU are about to be eaten by ME, so that makes you supper. That's obvious. But even a murderous carnivore like myself will be a supper for worms one day. We're all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.

She's a queen and a mother and it's a mother's job to be scary," said Wish. "Well she's very successful at her job," shivered Bodkin.

You do not have to accept the hand that Fate has dealt you.

You, dear reader, I am sure cannot imagine what it might be like to live in a world in which books are banned. For surely, such things will never happen in the future? Thank Thor that you live in a time and a place where people have the right to live and think and write and read their books in peace, and there are no need for Heroes anymore… And spare a thought for those who have not been so lucky.

Keep hoping, keep guessing, keep dreaming.

Stories come from somewhere, said the witch. The past haunts the present in more ways than we realise.

Growing up happens so quick sometimes, that it catches us by surprise.

I wonder," said Crusher slowly, "if the fate of human beings is predetermined by the stars, or do they forge their own destiny? Is there really such a thing as 'luck'? And what exactly do we mean by the concept of 'free will'?" Which were all interesting questions, but perhaps not entirely helpful right at that particular moment.

The first seeds of doubt about all that she had been told about Magic creatures were sown in Wish's mind when she looked up at the giant's kid face....

Ah, being a parent is so much harder than it looks. And just because you are old, does not mean that you do not make mistakes. So that is the story of the Great Jailbreak of Gormincrag.

We spent the time running free and unsupervised all over the island, and going out in boats on our own. For this was the 1970s, when the notion of childcare was to open the front door and say: 'Bye kids, come back when your hungry. Don't fall off a cliff...' -From The Writer's Map chapter First Steps

Sometimes we can be helpful in ways that are not totally obvious

We're all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time

I had been immersed in the waters of the Great West Ocean, and came out a different person

It's only paranoia, whispered the Wodensfang, If things aren't out to get you...

Witches' feet make no footprint. Witches' bodies make no shadows. But they make the trees, the land, the moss, A little colder as they pass.

Time cannot tick backward

When a young rabbit spots a hawk circling above, it may never have seen such a creature before- but there is some ancestral memory that tells it to be afraid, to leap in great, panicky bounds to the safety of the burrow

That dying child, that wasn't us, so don't you cuss and don't you dare Cross-the-sprites-and-curse-their-spite-and-make-your-hand-a-stony-fist. You can't punch us, We don't exist, We're only mist, And that was just the wind that hissed.