“Call Arnold Slick from Turtle Crick!”

“Turtles don't feel, stupid," said Jem.

"Were you ever a turtle, huh?”

“And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course… all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”

“The turtle moves.”

“There is an Indian story -- at least I heard it as an Indian story -- about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked (perhaps he was an ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? 'Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down.”

“Always ask the turtle.”

“I'm running this, and I can jump the hurdles. I feel like I'm racing a bunch of little turtles. I keep a bandanna like the Ninja Turtles. I'm like a turtle when I sip the purple.”

“The turtle couldn't help us.”

“The turtle trapped 'twixt plated decks
Doth practically conceal its sex
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.”

“Maybe. Although I doubt most Shadowhunters get a tattoo of Donatello from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on their left shoulder.”