Jane

“Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.

“Er…aren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?” said her mother, who’d never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.

“No, Mum, I’m supposed not to,” said Tiffany, still scrubbing.

“But can’t you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?”

“The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is,” said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. “I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe.”

Mrs. Aching backed away. “I thought you just had to wave your hands about,” she mumbled nervously.

“That works,” said Tiffany, “but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

“She's known sadness. That's what it is. I only just thought that as I wrote it. She's known sadness, and it has made her kind.”
― Nathan Filer, The Shock of the Fall

“I'm not going to wear a red dress," she said.
"It would look stunning, My Lady," she called.
She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. "If there's anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I'll hit him in the face.”
― Kristin Cashore, Graceling

“For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm.”
― Siegfried Sassoon