At last, I came to the Lost Dog's Home which my map told me marked the turnoff to Shelly Beach. You could hear some of the dogs barking, calling out for their owners to come and get them away from there... I hated going to those places because I always wanted to take all the dogs home or let them go free, even though I knew most of them would go straight out and be hit by a car or starve to death. I sometimes wished I could have a place where I could take those dogs and let them live. The Phantom had this sanctuary called Eden and all the animals there lived together, even tigers and baby deer, because they'd never learned its kill or be killed. The man-eaters ate fish out of the lagoon and the island was protected by the Band poison pygmies and by the piranha fish in the lagoon. I would have liked there to be such a place for pets who had been dumped of abandoned. They could feed the owners to the piranha.

— Isobelle Carmody

Cracks especially. You have to be careful of the cracks. Sometimes they are disguised as something else. A doorway, or a smile or even a winking eye. And if you fall through them, you never know were you will end up.

— Isobelle Carmody

Did you bite someone?' Jack inquired.' I laughed at people, which is much worse. My laughter has sharper teeth than any dog. It tears people apart who wish to be taken seriously, but I could not help myself. There were many complaints and finally a man in a brown suit came and looked at me. He was very important and not used to being laughed at, but I could see he had dandruff on his collar, and there was a spot of his breakfast egg on his lapel. You should have seen him - so puffed up and proud of himself. I couldn't help but laugh and that made people see him as I did, and so they laughed too. All of a sudden everyone realized that for all his status in official matters, he was a man who lived alone and was loveless.

— Isobelle Carmody

If human lives be, for their very brevity, sweet, then beast lives are sweeter still...

— Isobelle Carmody

If we know one thing from experience it is that oppression does not crush rebellion, no matter how it tries,' I told him. 'It breeds it anew with every tyrannical act.

— Isobelle Carmody

I heard you laughing,' Jack said. He wanted to say something about the quality of that terrible laughter, but he did not know how to begin. So he said,' I've never heard anyone laugh like you do.

— Isobelle Carmody

Laughter is a powerful weapon for it carries the light. To laugh is to defy the darkness.

— Isobelle Carmody

Life has always been a matter of putting one's feet down carefully

— Isobelle Carmody

Mama, don't take him. We need him,' Jack whispered. 'Please. He will not forget you if you let him stay with us. He will love you forever and every time he laughs, he will remember how you once laughed...

— Isobelle Carmody

Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.

— Isobelle Carmody