- Every day brings a new sky
- Never trust an expert outside their profession
- The wise man is never afraid to say "I don't know" or "I was wrong"
- Fair and softly go sure and far
- All is not gold that glitters
- Short reckonings make long friends
- First be just, then you may be generous
- A virtuous friendship is a secured engagement
- If a spider breaks its thread twenty times, it will mend it again as often
- A hasty temper may give you cause to mourn all the days of your life
- To live happily, promote the happiness of others
- A few words, of common, downright practical sense, timely uttered, may be enough to counteract some foolish idea or belief put into her daughter's head by others, whilst if it be left unchecked, it may take such possession of the mind that it cannot be corrected later
- Truth is a rock large enough for all to stand on
- Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it
- One story is good until another is told
- Music is soul embodied in sound
- Out of doubt, out of dangerous
- Never say "it could be worse"
- One doubt may lead to disbelief
- When in motion, to push on is easy
- A word before is worth two behind
- Troubles are doubled by brooding on themselves
- Think of ease but work on
- The best way to be lazy is to be efficient - it makes all sorts of time
- Perseverance is the bridge by which difficulty is overcome
- Never walk one way and look another
- An act is better than a word
- Poor people pass around the same twenty bucks
- Never leave certainty for hope
- Little comforts bring much happiness
- A cup must be bitter that a smile will not sweeten
- When reason rules appetite obeys; when appetite commands, the pocket pays
- Never grocery shop hungry
- Every pea helps to fill the peck (measure)
- What maintains one vice would bring up two children
- Death does not blow a trumpet
- As virtue is in the tree, such is the fruit
- Travel north, south, east, or west, one's own house is still the best
- Travel broadens the mind
- Cunning men's cloaks sometimes fall
- O heart! But try it once &- 'tis easy to be but to appear so, what a strain and misery
- Good wares make a quick market
- Every beginning is weak
- The gods didn't fire the pottery
- No expert fell from the sky
- Just a minute. I'll see if I can find it in this book.
- Rot is the punishment of neglect.
- Do everything in its proper time. Keep everything to its proper use. Put everything in its proper place.
- Did you use my sewing scissors?
- Where is the thingamabob?
- Discard nothing which may serve to nourish your own family or a poorer one.
- It is better to accomplish perfectly a small amount then to half do ten times as much.
- Perfection is the enemy of done.
- Be temperate in all things.
- Willful waste makes woeful want.
- Between husband and wife, little attentions beget much love.
- Whatever you may choose to give away, always be sure to keep your temper
- Keep your children's feet dry and warm
- Guard the foot and the head will seldom harm
- Little deeds are like little seeds, they grow to flowers or to weeds.
- There is a balm for every wound
- Observation is the best teacher
- Small beginnings may lead to large ends
- Falsehood, like a nettle, stings those who meddle with it.
- Ow! What bit me?
- The fall of the leaf is a whisper to the living.
- Never meddle with gunpowder by candle light
- A hungry man sees far.
- I've been through a desert on a horse with no name.
- Idle folks take the most pains.
- Ill-nature finds poison in the sweetest flower
- Deep rivers flow with silent majesty, shallow brooks are noisy.
- Never trouble another for what you can do yourself
- Every recipe is the basis of many others
- Help others and you're a hero too
- A good suggestion is often invaluable
- Try all things, hold fast to that which is good
- We learn something ever by our failures
- Second trials often succeed, second thoughts are often best.
- A sooty chimney costs many a beefsteak
- Pride costs more than hunger, thirst, or cold
- Where is the bathroom?
- I don't have enough money.
- When did you see a doctor last?
- That doctor is a crook.
- You're cheating me because I'm a foreigner!
- Why is your face green?
- Two black cats were discussing their tails: "My tail is longer than yours", said one of them to the other.
"I don't believe you", said the other cat.
"Let's compare."
"No, I don't trust you. You always cheat." - A wink's as good as a nudge. Say no more.
- Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name?
- I don't understand what you're saying. Speak Nyazchyn!
- Who is watching me? Somebody is watching me.
- Which flowers are yours?
- This is the third time I've told you, so listen up this time.
- Why are you laughing?
- There will be no trouble.
- This person saw it happen.
- Are you not ashamed?
- What is your name? What is your quest? What is your favorite color?
- If you can understand this, you know too much.
- Nobody remembers the names of ants.
- We should have taken a walk, but it is too hot.
- I want some more milk.
- Give me some water, please!
- As soon as the sun sets, light a fire.
- This bar isn't as good as it used to be.
- Yes, I heard you and no, I don't want to buy it.
- The eyes are blind. One must look with the heart.
- I know who I want to take me home.
- We are sitting in the night, and like the night, we are silent.
- Some Poisons enter through the blood. Some are ingested. Some are inhaled. All ways through which mortals draw strength are paths for poison
- Of course you fight should fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire.
- I have seen the future. It does not include you.
- I should go
- A man might gather up fruit that was falling down onto another man's farm.
- Should we tell him the truth?
- Tell me that I'm not crazy
- We'll stay together forever.
- Blame him! He's the one who didn't do his job properly.
- I need to wander down another road.
- Oh God, I've started smelling colors.
- It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.
- Be careful! These children bite.
- Only brush the teeth you want to keep.
- I was about to do that.
- Only the wind knows where it blows.
- Churn the milk to make butter.
- I'm just seven hours old, truly beautiful to behold.
- I was just joking.
- It's not the glittering weapon that fights the fight, but rather the hero's heart.
- I have a whole bucket of pebbles.
- Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk to you again.
- When you're done, I'll begin my lesson.
- Live long and prosper.
- That was a good idea! Write that down.
- Even monkeys sometimes fall out of trees.
- This tastes rancid. What on earth is this?
- Look at the mess you've made!
- Rivers give more water than rain.
- The enemy of my enemy is my friend
- I'll go shopping this afternoon
- No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.
- Here's to a wet night and a dry morning
- Here's to absent friends and twice to absent enemies
- a man that can't laugh at himself should be given a mirror
- character is better than wealth
- better the coldness of a friend than the sweetness of an enemy
- the tree remains, but not the hand that planted it
- Anything you can do, I can do better
- A full belly is a happy belly
- I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now
- Let the bodies hit the floor
- When you're thinking of me, I'm thinking of you too
- There are four lights!
- All cats are black at night
- When you're fierce like me, you cast a fierce shadow
- It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
- Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
- Who stinks?
- Why are we whispering?
- What damn planet are you from?
- There is no overkill, only open fire and I'm out of ammo
- Did you see that? No. What was it?
- Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?
- You wouldn't believe what monster I saw!
Neither can I, I didn't see it myself - Find the fault in yourself so you may find the good in others
- We need a translation for this.
- Why is it so cold today?
- He had a scary face.
- The trees will flower in a few weeks
- Have you finished the book?
- They say that ghosts haunt there
- Be careful with suspicious people
- Why is there a universe? Why is there anything at all? Why isn't there just nothing? That there is not, in fact, just nothing and that there is, instead, something, and lots of it, seems as if it should be impossible, and yet: here we are!
- Don't talk to me or my son ever again.
- Do you want to go home?
- Nobody remembers the names of ants.
- We are sitting in the night, and like the night, we are silent.
- The damage cannot be undone.
- Mock not a cobbler for his black thumb
- Night is not dork to the good, nor is day bright to the wicked
- Rustle is not industry
- Never open the door to a little vice
- Knowledge makes humble, ignorance makes proud
- A season for everything and everything in season
- The hypocrite will fast to seem more holy
- Do good to your enemy that he may become your friend
- As a man lives so shall he die
- A fool's bolt is soon shot
- Knowledge talks lowly, ignorance talks loudly
- Be not the first by whom the new is tried, nor yet the last to cast the old aside.
- A waiting appetite kindles many a spite.
- A blunt knife shows a dull wife
- Who never tries cannot win the prize
- Eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation
- A liar should have a good memory
- Begin well and end better
- You have the handwriting of a drunk squirrel
Translation Exercises
A combination of proverbs and sayings, quotes from stuff I like, song lyrics, random translation exercises I've collected, and the occasional thing I made up.
Proverbs of Spain
From Little Blue Book No. 120, edited by E. Haldeman-Julius. Copyright 1924. (Warning: all the sexism) (All sayings are included, but a few are edited slightly)
- Three helping one another will do as much as six men singly.
- Other people's troubles kill the donkey.
- Lock your door so that you may keep your neighbours honest.
- The dead and the absent have no friends left them.
- He who says much must be right sometimes.
- When the devil preaches the world is coming to an end.
- He who sows on sand does not reap fish.
- Trouble will rain on those who are already wet.
- Drinking water neither makes a man sick nor in debt no his wife a widow.
- The imagination easily sees what it desires.
- To reply to an evil word by another taunt is like trying to clean off dirt with mud.
- Make no absolute promises, for nobody will help you perform them.
- Beware of one who is always laughing, as a fool; and of one who never laughs, as a knave.
- A will is even more dangerous than a doctor. More people have died because they made their will than because they were sick.
- If you would be Pope. you must think of nothing else.
- If you would live in health be old betimes.
- I know where the shoe pinches me.
- Since you know everything, and I know nothing, tell me what I dreamed this morning.
- When only foolish reasons can be found, he argues best who utters not a sound.
- God aids him who changes.
- If you are vexed or angry you will have two troubles instead of one
- Grain by grain the fowl fills her crop
- He who spits against Heaven spits in his own face
- I am no river, but can go back when there is reason for it
- Good housekeeping makes a poor Will
- He does something who sets his house on fire; he scares away the rats and warms himself
- He who eats his cock alone, much catch his horse so, too
- Make a bridge of silver form a flying enemy
- There is a fig in Rome for him who gives not another advice before he asks for it
- The greatest humiliation for a man is to give proofs that he is a man
- It is the nature of women to disdain those who love them and to love those who abhor them
- Tyrant kings make treacherous subjects
- He who has drunk his fill soon turns his back on the fountain
- The greatest thief is not he who steals because he has nothing, but he who having, gives much in order to steal more
- Woman is a pill and must be gilded when she is taken
- A good hope is better than a poor possession
- A discreet man will always be ignorant of more than he knows
- The silliest man knows his own affairs best
- The husband who has suspicions of his wife gives every one the right to consider her dissolute
- He will never worship the image on the altar who knew it when it was a trunk of wood in the garden
- A good wife is not a wife only; who possesses her is rich with her alone
- An halter will sooner come without faking any care about it than a canonship
- We have most to fear from fortune when we have the largest handful of her
- Beware of risking much if he who gives advice is a poor man
- It is only himself that the envious man injures, for he gnaws and tortures himself, and the man he envies feels none the worse for it.
- One nail drives out another
- Nothing in the world is stronger than a man save his own passions
- Italy to be born in, France to live in, and Spain to die in
- Beauty and Chastity have always a mortal quarrel between themselves
- The God is made not by him who adorns it but by him who adores it
- The greater the sinner, the greater the sin
- The poor magistrate is the maggot of justice
- It is an exceptional greatness to utilize wise men
- You cannot catch trout with dry breeches
- Guests and fish stink on the third day
- The will is ever the pimp of appetite
- They will come for wool and go back shorn
- Man, woman, and love originated fire
- Even in hell one finds companionship
- He whom it touches nearest always learns his injury last
- The way never to grow old and grey-headed is to die young
- For a marriage to be peaceful the husband should be deaf and the wife blind
- Every man is good, but not for everything
- To do good to scoundrels is to throw water into the sea
- A wall between best preserves friendship
- There is a remedy for everything but death
- The creditor has always a better memory than the debtor
- To make excuses before they are needed is to blame one's self
- There is no ill thing in Spain but that which can speaking
- On a day when you can on dry bread in your own house, do not seek to eat tender peacocks in the house of another
- Wickedness is rarely at a loss for cleverness
- Good breeding and money make our sons gentlemen
- Any wise man can be cheated by a foolish woman
- God keep him from him whom I trust, from him whom I trust not I shall keep myself
- A woman's advice is of little value, and he does not take it is a fool
- He who called arms and letters sisters, knew little of their family, for no lineages are so far apart as saying and doing
- If you would know the worth of a ducat, go and borrow one
- Barking does never have valiant teeth
- God is omnipotent and money is His lieutenant
- Praise the man whose bread you eat
- There is no tomorrow for an asking friend
- O, a wise man indeed was he, who was annoyed that his works pleased the many
- A great fortune with a wife is a bed full of brambles
- Jealousy will oft disclose what a thousand wiles have not
- Receive your money before you give a receipt for it, and take a receipt before you pay it
- Patience and shuffle the pack
- To make yourself invisible... be a meddler, a gossip, a liar, a cheat, and a miser, and then nobody will want to see you more than he would the devil.
- God does the cure, and the physician takes the money for it
- Under a tattered cloak you will generally find a good drinker
- Kings go as far as they are able, not so far as they desire to go
- Every man is a fool in another man's opinion
- If she tells of scorn, honour, and hate, a woman becomes the chronicler of her own story
- Threatened men eat bread still (live on)
- Who stands under a good tree is sheltered by a good shadow
- A wise man never says, "I did not think of that."
- He who finds not love finds nothing
- Of the great speak neither well nor ill, for if you speak well you lie, and if ill, you place yourself in danger
- When two friends have a common purse, one sings and the other weeps
- He who loves you will make you weep, and who hates you may make you laugh
- The master makes the house to be respected, not the house the master
- We are usually the best men when we are in the worst health
- Among the safest courses, the safest of all is to doubt
- Your looking-glass will tell you when none of your friends will
- When God ordains that one should die in the dark, as the old time saying goes, it avails nothing that one's father is a wax chandler
- Great posts and offices are like the ivy on the wall which makes it look fine but ruins it
- Wit without discretion is a sword in the hand of a fool
- If the horse were not shod with iron, the king would not be crowned with gold
- Truth and roses have thorns about them
- Trust your friends today as though they would tomorrow be enemies, and bitter ones
- To heap fresh kindnesses upon ungrateful men is the wisest but withal the most cruel revenge
- The horse may wish to do one thing, but he who saddles him another
- Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason
- He who loves not a beautiful woman with all his five senses esteems not nature in its greatest care and its highest achievement
- Though the vixen change her skin she cannot lay aside her nature
- The best men came worse out of company than they went into it
- Even in knowledge there should be some reserve, which may double its perfections
- Compare your griefs with other men's and they will seem less
- Over-greed will burst the bag
- Past services are like old debts, very few are ever paid
- Owe money to be paid at Easter and Lent will seem short to you
- Not e'en the good is good for him who craves it not
- If the dovecote lacks not food, it will lack not doves
- The light of another will never light you, if you have none of your own
- The doctor says there is no hope, and as he does the killing he ought to know
- The wise man should do at the beginning what the fool does at the end
- If the pitcher knocks the stone or the stone knocks the pitcher, it is equally bad for the pitcher
- The best right is the oldest - possession
- To be a courtier is to say amen to everything or hold your tongue
- If love be time it is not true
- To change one's mind is rather a sign of prudence than ignorance
- Talk with many but feel with few
- The tepid water of incredulity acts as an emetic on secrets
- The father gives the dowry and God gives the woman
- It is dangerous to mention ropes in the house of a man who was hanged
- Little and good is what pleases
- The poor man risks nothing when he meets a thief
- Haste is a fool's passion
- In the hum of the market there is money, but under the cherry tree there is rest
- A happy death is better than a lawsuit
- By the king's example the realm is ruled
- It is the nature of flattery to forget the absent
- Desperation is the mistress of the impossible
- A woman's honour is a ship at sea without a rudder
- However early you get up you cannot hasten the dawn
- The ear is the postern gate of truth and the main gate of falsehood
- The first step in the ladder of folly is to believe oneself wise
- This tomorrow of yours lasts forever
- To tell a woman everything she may not do is to tell her what she can do
- It is pleasant to command, though it be only a flock of sheep
- Nothing is easier than to cheat an honest man
- I wept when I was born, and every day explains why
- He who has nothing to give will never get his horse to trot
- He who marries a widow will have a dead man's head often thrown in his dish
- Only he is fortunate with woman of whom they take no notice
- A wondrous fair woman is not all her husband's own
- He who talks while he is fighting is the trumpeter of his honour, and trumpeters do not fight
- The best soldier comes from the plough
- She alone is chaste who has never been sought
- Wine wears no breeches
- He who would be rich has not to pile up money, but to diminish his wants
- A covetous man makes a halfpenny of a farthing and a liberal man makes sixpence of it
- Kings' smiles cut deeper than the edge of the sharpest sword
- Who hath a wife hath also an enemy
- He who will revenge every affront means not to live long
- A very great beauty is either a fool or proud
- A woman should be chosen by the ears, not by the eyes
- Look upon a picture and a battle at a good distance
- He who known he does not know is never a fool
- Do not make me kiss and you will not make me sin
- While a tall maid is stooping the little one has swept the house
- The absent are always in fault
- To "Leave my house" and "What do you want with my wife?" there is no reply
- There's no bad bread to a good appetite
- He who stumbles and falls not mends his pace
- Fear ever goeth armed
- Serve a great man and you will know what sorrow is.
- If folly were pain we should have great crying out in every house
- Love hath the one excuse for all the ills it works, that it is love
- Wine is the tomb of memory
- In matters of love and diplomacy any girl is the eternal woman
- Begin in other people's way so as to end by having your own way
- Permission is needless to him who has the power to take without it
- Lowly ground and poorly tilled will sometimes breed a fragrant rose
- When the lion is dead, even the hares will pull his mane
- The wise man derives more advantages from his enemies than the fool from his friends
- The fewer words, the fewer lawsuits
- In a quiet woman there is either the supreme point of excellence or there are wiles
- Hunger is it that puts to proof the fineness of our mortal woof
- In our days they count him who swears a man rather than him whose beard is grown
- Laws, like the spider's web, catch the fly and let the hawk go free
- When fire and water are at war it is the fire that always dies
- A coverlet of wine is good for a bad bed
- Even the ass wearies of work
- In revolutions it is the most powerful who incurs the greatest danger
- In anger punishment smacks of vengeance
- They that are bold with women are never bold with men
- In this knavish world of ours he who is content is rich
- In the tricky delights of love, he who is blindest sees best
- Be patient ever with the powerful
- In great peace, great feuds
- In the school of peril dangers are lessons
- In love there is no choosing
- In war patience is more often of service than force
- Women ever like to cover their foolishness by ingratitude
- He is always right who suspects that he is always making mistakes
- Knowledge without sense is twofold folly
- The doctor begins where the apothecary ends, and the clergyman where the doctor ends
- In a sense it is cruel for a man to console another for a sorrow that he himself has not experienced
- Memory is life's clock
- At twenty a man will be a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy a monkey, and at eighty nothing
- When the larder is full, the supper is quickly cooked
- Fear is the alarm clock of sleeping memory
- There's always a floating piece of wood to help a blind tortoise
- Jealousy knows no loyalty
- He who anticipates his good fortune risks it by his presumption
- The sun once stood still; the wheel of Fortune never
- The day the soldier marries, he hangs up his arms, even though he goes from a little war to a greater one
- Wine comforts the heart with it warmth and destroys the brain by drying it
- There's nothing in the world worse than an old man with a fancy
- Every one is as God made him, and oftentimes ever worse
- Of the same breed are marriage and repentance
- Virtue is more persecuted by the wicked than loved by the good
- When failings afflict the humble they have to be dearly paid for
- Women undervalue what is given to them and die for what is denied them
- The rich man's babble passes for maxims in the world
- When the good are rich they are like enamelled gold
- Riches do not make a man rich but busy; no do they make him lord, but steward
- What is well said is quickly said
- That which is brief, if it be good, is good twice over
- That's a wise delay which makes the road safe
- One "take this" is worth two "I will give thee's"
- The fool in his own house knows more than the wise man in the house of another
- Love kills with golden arrows
- Wine is the milk of the aged
- The man is fire, the woman tow, the devil comes the coal to blow
- I had rather go to heaven Sancho than to hell a governor
- A bird in the hand is worth more than a bull flying
- A wise man knows his own ignorance; a fool thinks he knows everything
- The tree that has once grown crooked will never be straight
- We talk, but God does what he pleases
- The foot of the owner is the best manure for his land
- I sell nothing on trust before tomorrow
- Rapid resolutions are the safest if they can be soon undone
- No woman is ugly when she is dressed
- Fools and children always tell homely truths
- Words will pay for most things
- It is true that there are many good wives, but they are underground
- Talking very much and lying are cousins-german
- Long hair and little brains
- He who makes more of you than he used to either would cheat you or needs you
- Wine has two defects; if you add water to it, you ruin it; if you do not add water, it ruins you
- He who trusts nobody is never deceived
- The woman who obeys her husband rules him
- Keep yourself from the anger of a great man, from a tumult of the mob, from fools in a narrow way, from a man that is marked from a widow that has been thrice married, from wind that comes in at a hole, and from a reconciled enemy.
- The woman who is determined to be respected can be so in the midst of an army of soldiers
- One cannot learn to swim in a field
- When once a woman braves her husband there is thenceforward no baseness that she is not capable of committing against him
- The wise man values more those who want something of him than those he has already obliged
- A woman and a melon; let them be fairly ripe
- Secrecy is the soul of business
- If women are bad the fault is that of men
- Silence is lovers' rhetoric
- He who has a handsome wife, or a castle on the frontier, or a vineyard near the highway, never lacks a quarrel
- Be ever the last to go over a deep river
- It is well said that fortune only belongs to those her find her, and not to those who seek her
- The majesty and grandeur do not lie in being a lord, but in being acknowledged one
- Think more of not missing once than of hitting the mark a hundred times
- Only by taste can we account for taste
- He who peeps through a hole may see what will vex him
- He who hath servants hath enemies which he cannot be without
- The common people pardon no fault in any man
- The pen is a sixth sense for the absent, because they cannot use the other five
- The arguments of a king are addressed not to the understanding but to the obligation of his vassals
- Blood comes by birth, vice by contagion
- The rose would have been proud if it had not been born amongst thorns
- It is better to be a fool with the crowd than wise by oneself
- Trouble not yourself about news; it will soon grow stale, and you will have it
- He who sows his land trusts in God
- A friar who asks alms for God's sake, asks for two
- A bad debtor never lacks excuses
- Wolves devour the ass that has many owners
- An old ox draws a straight furrow
- Breed crows and they will pick your eyes out
- Beware of silent men and of dogs that don't bark
- Speaking without thinking is shooting without aiming
- A smoky house, a leaky roof, and a scolding wife drive a man from home
- My teeth are nearer than my kindred
- It is a bad hen that feeds at home and lays abroad
- At the foot of a lighthouse one finds darkness
- When you aim at the rat beware of the vase
- What one does, one becomes
- To the rat a thief is the same as a samurai
- Whoever washes an ass's head loses time and soap
- The greatest booby knows most in his own house
- The ills that swift we know but swifter become ills
- The dearest child of all is the dead one
- All those who look fools are so, and the half of those who do not as well
- The recognition of one's own imperfections is very high perfection
- June, July, August, and Carthagena are the four best posts of Spain
- By night all cats are grey
- He who loves not the loved one's faults does not truly love
- A saints words and a cat's claws
- Weeds are not hindered by frost
- He who fears death enjoys not life
- No mountain is so high that an ass loaded with gold cannot climb it
- The most mixed or alloyed joy is that men take in their children
- He loses all who loses the right moment
- One eye on the frying pan, one on the cat
- The more servants a master has, the more enemies he has
- One fool makes a hundred
- The beauty is sweetest which a veil hides
- One cuirass serves for a hundred brawls
- The diner thinks one thing, and the inn-keeper another
- There are many who write good deeds in the dust; and injuries on marble
- Better is a slice of bread and garlic eaten at one's own table, than a thousand dishes under another's roof
- Good wine makes a bad head and a long story
- A wise man knows no more to any purpose than he practices
- He who would be rich in one year is hanged at the end of six months
- At a good pennyworth pause awhile
- Do yourself a kindness, sir. (The beggar's phrase.)
- Go early to market and as late as you can to battle.
Ursula Vernon / T. Kingfisher
- Be safe, and stay out of trouble - The Hidden Almanac
- There was a dead girl in my aunt's bakery - first line from A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
- She was going to die because of the rutabagas - first line from Bryony and Roses
- "Kingfisher writes like I would if I were using a pen name" - Ursula Vernon (from the cover of Toad Words and Other Stories)
- Frogs fall out of my mouth when I talk. Toads, too. It used to be a problem - first lines from Toad Words
- There are a number of smells one expects to encounter in a dungeon. Fresh rosemary generally isn’t one of them. - first line of Clockwork Boys