Quotes from Tom Holt

You don't go around saying "Am I happy?" all the time, unless you're human, of course.

If you're mortal, all they can do to you is kill you.

Books, the estate agent had told him, provide excellent insulation, and since the heating bills would be very considerable in any event, he might as well leave them there even if he had no intention of ever reading them.

The fault was lying on its' back...

She] laughed so that the street seemed full of little silver bells

What are the deeds of heroes, except a few frightened people doing the best they can in the circumstances?

He could hear rain pattering on the thatch, like a million mice line-dancing.

Mr Tanner frowned at him, as though he was a spelling mistake.

Look not for too long into the doughnut, lest the doughnut look into you.

It was one of those moments when the moral high ground opens and swallows you up.

Threats ... are the last resort of the inadequate negotiator.

the Elf had it in her to speak the Seven Words of Power, and there was no death so horrible that he wouldn't embrace it joyfully rather than hear them; I told you, but you wouldn't listen.

it was all very well for Neville to talk blithely about chucking in this job and getting a nice one instead, but it had taken him a very long time to find anybody who was prepared to trade him money for a part of his lifespan, and the only people who'd proved willing to make such a deal were, by any criteria, as crazy as a barrelful of ferrets.

The world is full of interiors that bleach the spirit. Hospitals, police stations, job centres, local government offices and prisons all have their own subtle type of vampire colour scheme and black-hole furnishing, capable by accident or design of wiping away a person's self-esteem and will to resist, like boiled-over soup off a ceramic hob.

Pile up that gold around my head. I must take it with me to pay the ferryman.' 'I thought it was just a coin on the eyes or something.' 'Inflation. Also, I'll take up rather a lot of room on the boat.

The next morning, Malcolm thought long and hard before waking up, for he had come to recognise over the past quarter of a century that rather less can go wrong if you are asleep.

The fact that he hated and feared his new environment was largely beside the point, for he had been taught long ago that what he thought and felt about any given subject was without question the least important thing in the world.

Its kitchens were enormous and capable of being put to any use except the convenient preparation of food.

But something told Malcolm that plumbing made gurgling noises, not stealthy creeping noises.

For some reason or other, Loge had a horrible feeling that by We, Wotan meant him.

I know what you're doing," the wolf said. "This is advanced interrogation techniques, right? First you destroy my self-esteem and sense of individuality, then you force me to tell you where the pack hides out, so your woodcutter pals can come and slaughter us. Well, you're wasting your breath. I won't talk. I won't talk. Got that?

She] was not nearly so intrusive. If she happened to observe the comings and goings of her friends out of the corner of her eye (which she could hardly fail to do, given the nature of her favorite sitting-place) and chanced to be able to remember when she had seen them and where they had been going, it was simply a tribute to her keen powers of observation and recall. Conscious spying was beneath her altogether.

But the world continued to thrive and prosper, with only the epidemic of love and romance spoiling an otherwise perfect situation.

Suddenly, she was not pretty at all; she looked like a thousand-year-old teenager who wanted something she knew she couldn't have.