Howl's Moving Castle (Howl's Moving Castle, #1)

by Diana Wynne Jones

In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three.

one of my top 3 favourite first lines of all time

She read a great deal, and very soon realised how little chance she had of an interesting future.

Lettie laughed in the way that showed she was not at all pleased. “Well, thank you,” she said. “Isn’t it lucky that I like cooking?”

Lettie marched behind the wheelbarrow looking much more cheerful than Sophie expected. Indeed, she had the air of shaking the dust of the hat shop off her feet.

Sophie talked to hats more and more as weeks went by. There was no one else much to talk to.

“What made me think I wanted life to be interesting?” she asked as she ran. “I’d be far too scared. It comes of being the eldest of three.”

He was such a dashing specimen too, with a bony, sophisticated face – really quite old, well into his twenties – and elaborate blond hair. His sleeves trailed longer than any in the Square, all scalloped edges and silver insets.

Lettie, prettier than ever and perhaps a little thinner, was putting cakes into bags as fast as she could go, giving each bag a deft little twist and looking back under her own elbow with a smile and an answer for each bag she twisted.

“You see, I’m not Lettie. I’m Martha.”

“Yes, and I’m enough like her to understand her,” Martha retorted.

Mother knows you don’t have to be unkind to someone in order to exploit them.

And she was within an ace of leaving the house and setting out to seek her fortune, until she remembered she was the eldest and there was no point. She took up the hat again, sighing.

this book was written for eldest daughters, i swear

The rule was: Lose your temper, lose a customer. She had just proved that rule. It troubled her to realise how very enjoyable it had been.

the true retail struggle

The shop bell clanged and the grandest customer she had ever seen sailed in, with a sable wrap drooping from her elbows and diamonds winking all over her dense black dress.

“By the way, you won’t be able to tell anyone you’re under a spell,”

She thought she saw a stick, a mile or so on, but when she hauled on it, it proved to be the bottom end of an old scarecrow someone had thrown into the hedge.

“Now if I wasn’t doomed to failure because of my position in the family,” she told the scarecrow, “you could come to life and offer me help in making my fortune. But I wish you luck anyway.”

Wizard Howl’s castle was rumbling and bumping towards her across the moorland. Black smoke was blowing up in clouds from behind its black battlements. It looked tall and thin and heavy and ugly and very sinister indeed.

I’m Howl’s apprentice, Michael.”

MICHAEL 🥳🎉

In the middle of the night Sophie was woken by someone snoring. She jumped upright, rather irritated to discover that she was the one who had been snoring.

Sophie recalled that she was in a wizard’s castle, and also, with unpleasant distinctness, that there was a human skull on a workbench somewhere behind her.

But she was sidetracked a little by imagining a face in the flames. “It would be a thin blue face,” she murmured, “very long and thin, with a thin blue nose. But those curly green flames on top are most definitely your hair.

“How about making a bargain with me? I’ll break your spell if you agree to break this contract I’m under.”

Howl’s quite heartless, you know.”

“I hope your bacon burns,” Calcifer said, muffled under the pan.

“Where have I seen you before?”

Calcifer blazed up. “Kingsbury door!” Howl, who was on his way to the bathroom, went to the door instead. There was a square wooden knob above the door, set into the lintel, with a dab of paint on each of its four sides. At that moment there was a green blob on the side that was at the bottom, but Howl turned the knob round so that it had a red blob downwards before he opened the door.

As a girl, Sophie would have shrivelled with embarrassment at the way she was behaving. As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that a great relief.

I can wait for the achy bones but I can't wait to not gaf anymore

“Howl never commits himself to anything. I was here six months before he seemed to notice I was living here and made me his apprentice.

“Of course you hate getting angry!” she retorted. “You don’t like anything unpleasant, do you? You’re a slitherer-outer, that’s what you are! You slither away from anything you don’t like!”

“How you must love servitude!”

“Why didn’t he turn me out?” she said, half to herself and half to Michael. “It beats me,” said Michael. “But I think he goes by Calcifer. Most people who come in here either don’t notice Calcifer, or they’re scared stiff of him.”

“Goodness, you’re a fine suit, even if you are a bit worn! Built to pull in the girls, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think I’m evil,” Calcifer protested.

:(

“Howl’s very fickle,” said Calcifer. “He’s only interested until the girl falls in love with him. Then he can’t be bothered with her.”

“It’s heartless and pointless.” “He’s made that way,” said Calcifer.

It seemed the usual flaxen colour right to the roots. The only difference might have been a slight, very slight, trace of red.

There were horrendous, dramatic, violent quantities of green slime – oodles of it.

They usually get rid of the other fellows as soon as I come along.”

“I think of her all the time,” he said. “Lovely, lovely Lettie Hatter.”