“Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.”

“None of [the books are] worth reading. There are no fairy tales, no faerie tails, no sword-swinging princesses or lightning-throwing gods.”

“This is a Tale about a tail — a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.”

“His laugh is made if porch swings and lemonade”

“Duckbills were supposedly croc-style swimmers, moving by strong, easy, side-to-side flexures of their tail. Therefore, the optimal design would feature vertical tail spines. But duckbill spines all slanted strongly backward, exactly as in land-living lizards, not in swimmers.
Another problem in the duckbill's swimming equipment lies in the profile of the tail. The deepest part of the croc's tail is close to the end, because the end swings through a wider arc than does the base in moving side to side. Thus the tail is deepest where it can do the most good in pushing against the water. All powerful tail-scullers have such deep tail ends. But duckbill tails were deepest at the hips and become progressively narrower from top-to-bottom toward the tip - another caudal feature nearly totally maladapted for its primary function.”

“Often I think the Almighty is like a snow bunting abandoned in all weathers. Such a bird is about the weight of a postage stamp. Yet he does not blow away when he stands in the open in a tempest... He wields this fragile head against the gale, with his beak to the ground, wings folded close to his sides and his tail pointing upwards; and the wind can get no hold on him, and cleaves.”

“This is a fierce bad rabbit;
look at his savage whiskers,
and his claws and his turned-up tail.”

“There was a brief pause for them to evaluate the full horror of the situation. Magnus. personally, was in horror up to his elbows.”

“Foaly twitched his tail contentedly. Genius. No point in being humble about it.”

“There is something in me maybe someday
to be written; now it is folded, and folded,
and folded, like a note in school.”