Quotes from book
Hexwood

Name: Hexwood
Author: Diana Wynne Jones

Hexwood is a 1993 fantasy/science fiction novel for young adults. It is by British author Diana Wynne Jones.The book was dedicated to author Neil Gaiman, who later wrote a poem about the honor and gave it to her.Jones said of the book “it’s very strange but people who’ve read it so far say that it’s absolutely fascinating, I mean it’s really weird - I couldn’t begin to describe it. It demanded to be written back to front and sideways.”

“Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of danger. It had to be a hoax.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Hexwood

Source: Hexwood

“"It looks as if you need only enter the field for long enough to recognise the bannus and take hold of it. Then you order it to stop."
"Fight my way through a mob of dancing girls and snatch the dulcimer off the leading damsel," Reigner Two said morbidly. "I can just see myself. I think the fools who invented this thing might have thought of a simpler way to stop it. What's wrong with a red switch?"”

Diana Wynne Jones book Hexwood

Source: Hexwood (1993), p. 138.

“"Oh, thank goodness!" he babbled. "I didn't mean it - at least I did, but I don't mean it now, not any more!" He flung one arm around Yam and twisted the other into Mordion's rolled cloak. "They came. They rustled. Don't let them!"”

Diana Wynne Jones book Hexwood

Source: Hexwood (1993), p. 255.

“Ann looked down at him, spread on the bank preparing to go to sleep, and lost her temper. "Then you should go and tell him! You should look after him! He's all alone in this wood, and he's quite small, and he doesn't even know he's not supposed to go out of it. He probably doesn't even know how to work the field to get food. You - you calmly make him up, out of blood and - and nothing, and you expect him to do your dirty work for you, and you don't even tell him the rules!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Hexwood

You can't do that to a person!"
Source: Hexwood (1993), pp. 54-55.