The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, K

Knowledge [...] Sometimes there is the added twist that the Knowledge has been collected without your knowing it. In this case, you must have an inspiration before recognising it. A friendly WIZARD or TOUR MENTOR can help here. They will madden you, but they will give hints.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, J

Journey is of course your Tour. No discovery or action can take place in Fantasyland without a good deal of travelling about. This is in the Rules. The Tour will be set up so that you will find at the outset you need to go to a CITY...

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, I

Immortals are fairly common in Fantasyland. There are three kinds:
     1 GODDESSES AND GODS, who exist forever unless people stop believing in them.
     2 ELVES AND DARK LORDS, who live forever unless someone kills them.
     3 Humans who are
     (a) Cursed...
     (b) MAGIC USERS...

The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth, chapter 9

Ll.


This bit made me laugh rather a lot, largely because I didn't quite get it until the end.

(Note: the book is in English, with occasional Welsh and Latin remarks.)

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, H

Heraldry is rampant, passant and even couchant, but the exact rules are vague. Generally the Management is happy to paint an ANIMAL or plant of one colour on a field of another and leave it at that.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, G

Ghosts come both singly and in battalions. Single Ghosts can hurt or bespell you. The called-up battalions usually fight like living soldiers but are, for obvious reasons, very difficult to kill.

Three Men in a Boat, chapter 18

Our luck ordained it that the man should set his wreched machine in motion at the precise moment that we were both lying on our backs with a wild expression of 'Where am I? and what is it?' on our faces, and our feet waving madly in the air.

Three Men in a Boat, chapter 15

This is particularly apt, in my current dissertation-finishing state (also known as 'panic'):

It is not that I object to work, mind you; I like work; it fascinates me, I can sit and look at it for hours.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, F

Fruit is probably a luxury item. It is seldom served at INNS and usually makes its appearance only at feasts in the courts of KINGS.
     See also SCURVY.

Diana Wynne Jones
1934-2011

Three Men in a Boat, chapter 12

We did not know what had happened at first, because the sail shut out the view, but from the nature of the language that rose up upon the evening air, we gathered that we had come into the neighbourhood of human beings, and that they were vexed and discontented.

New Moan

The leafy crowns of the vast wood spread out before me, swaying in the evening breeze as the last of the daylight shone weakly on the horizon. I was sure there was a special name for this time of day, but I couldn't think what it was just now.


Hahahahahahahahahaha!

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, E

Enemy. The marvellous thing about Fantasyland is that you nearly always know exactly who your Enemy is. Everything is black and white - there is none of the greyness that afflicts enmities in our world, where you are always having to concede that there may be some good in someone...

One of Our Thursdays is Missing, chapter 20

'Bipedal movement is the skill of controlled falling,' said Square. 'If it wasn't so commonplace it would seem miraculous...'

Is there anything Fforde can't make funny?

Three Men in a Boat, chapter 6

There are many chuckle-some bits I'd like to quote. Here's one:

It was difficult to say, for the moment, which was us and which was the Middlesex bank of the river, but we found out after a while, and separated ourselves.

Dark Lord of Derkholm, chapter 25

"Sick-makingly" is exactly how a cart would slew about.

I don't suppose Diana Wynne Jones would mind if I was to use this for some other appropriate occasion. Various modes of boating spring to mind.

Dark Lord of Derkholm, chapter 5

How thoroughly ordinary Diana Wynne Jones makes having (and being) griffin-brothers and griffin-sisters.

"I can help here, too," Elda muttered into a pile of fruit. "Everyone thinks I'm too small."

New Moan

Warning: This book is a parody.

Here, our heroine has just learned of 'cell phones':

"I had never heard of such a thing. How many times might conflict be resolved and a dangerous moment avoided if only I had one of those?"

Three Men in a Boat, chapter 1

It is a curious fact, but nobody is ever sea-sick - on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, D

Dreams. They occupy the same slot as LEGENDS. They will be telling you something you need to know for the next phase of your Tour, but they will not be doing so very clearly. You will need to think a bit.

The Light Fantastic

No self-respecting High Priest is going to go through all the business with the trumpets and the processions and the banners and everything, and then shove his knife into a daffodil and a couple of plums. —Rincewind