"Nobody had ever heard of a loaf of bread turning into a flock of starlings for anyone they knew, but the nursery tale was well known, and in that country it didn't pay to take chances. The muttered words were usually only some phrase such as 'Bread, stay bread' or, in upper-class households, 'Bread, please oblige me,' which was a less wise form, since an especially impish gust of magic could choose to translate 'oblige' just as it chose."
"Fast bit her shoulder, lovingly, and not very hard, but Rosie looked at her friends in the striped twilight and thought: one reluctant princess who is really a horse-leech, two horses, a few hounds, a spaniel, a very small terrier, a fox, two mice, and a cat. And a fairy smith who says he's better at smithing. And we are seeking to confront a wicked fairy who is planning to destroy our entire country, and the only people who might help us are asleep. I suppose it is a confrontation we want. I don't know."
-Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
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