Character: Flavia de Luce

Why does the universe conspire against me? First the closet, then the library and now a pastry shop. My life has turned into a long corridor of locked doors.

I guess this is growing up: holding you strands fall away, and you have to stand on their own feet.

Give nature a vacuum, and she tries to fill it. Give her the pressure in one place, and she tries to thin out his. She always strives for balance, which she was not destined to reach; and she is never happy with what he has.

There are some sounds that don't need to hear kids, I may even no longer a child, and the most important sound - the cry of a parent.

Family is truly a quiet pool, and I have yet to figure out which pike swim in the depths of my own pit.

Hot water and tea - I thought, - Essentials in all emergency circumstances.

She always runs away at the slightest hint of displeasure and once when father raised his voice, wrapped in a carpet and refused to come out until he sent for her husband.

- It seems, Peter the Great now well-behaved, - I said with calculated shudder and a nod in the direction of the blazing hulks.
- Sometimes he's very cheeky. She smiled. - It's because he's Russian, I guess.

To put it politely, this woman is plain as pudding.

- Wow! he said, glancing round at the garden, like a Princess awakening from a deep sleep. I think we have a beautiful day!

If you're insinuating that my personal hygiene is not up to your high standards, go forth and suck my galoshes.

I couldn't understand, I just knew that some deep-seated chemical substance inside one of us really needed his long-lost complement - or antidote? - inside another.

In my experience, stupid jokes in the mouth of one who is not so stupid, are often nothing more than camouflage for something far, far worse.

I don't smoke, - I gasped.
"Why not?" she wanted to know. - Too young or too wise?
I was wondering if I did not begin next week - haltingly, I replied. - She just has not yet arrived.