A through the red plush curtains from which the rollers protruded. Abracadabra! and my father had dematerialized, like a knotted handkerchief or a white dove." -- Jonathan Raban, Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (2000) • "'Abracadabra!' Liane shouted, as the crowd sucked in its breath." -- David Drake, Master of the Cauldron (2004) • "Abracadabra, thus we learn / The more you create, the less you earn." -- Ogden Nash • "There is an element of abracadabra as the very last seam is stitched [in the quilt], because what you see in one single pieced triangular segment is not what you get in the multiplied sum." -- Paula Nadelstern, Kaleidoscopes & Quilts (1996) • "Gingerly he lifted up a corner of the handkerchief. Several cogs and some pieces of glass rolled across the table. Mr. Curry let out a roar of wrath. 'I think I forgot to say 'abracadabra,' faltered Paddington. 'Abracadabra!' shouted Mr. Curry, beside himself with rage. 'Abracadabra!' He held up the remains of his watch. 'Twenty years I've had this watch, and now look at it!'" -- Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington (1958) • "'Abr-abr-abr,' [the baby] gurgled happily when she was settled in her cradle. 'She is trying to say abracadabra,' said Little Witch Girl." -- Eleanor Estes, The Witch Family (2000) • From Peter Fallon, "Spring Song," The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (1991): It was as if someone only had to say Abracadabra to set alight the chestnut candelabra. • "The abracadabra boys -- . . . They know postures from impostures." -- Carl Sandburg, "The Abracadabra Boys," The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (1969) • From Cole Porter, "I Always Knew" (1942): Since that lovely evening In the twilight's blur, When the Fates cried "abracadabra," And there you were.