How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Though [Wizard Howl] did not seem to want to leave the hills, he was known to amuse himself by collecting young girls and sucking the souls from them. Or some people said he ate their hearts. He was an utterly cold-blooded and heartless wizard and no young girl was safe from him if he caught her on her own. Sophie, Lettie, and Martha, along with all the other girls in Market Chipping, were warned never to go out alone, which was a great annoyance to them. (1.9)
Sophie, Martha, and Lettie's warnings not to go out alone or else the Wizard Howl will eat their hearts is really just a supernatural variation on more everyday, real-world warnings for young women to be careful of dangerous guys. The worry that younger women might not be safe on their own has an unfortunate and tragic real-world side to it, which Jones lightens up a little bit by putting it into an over-the-top supernatural context.
Quote #2
[Sophie] settled herself comfortably in the chair while the demon thought. It thought aloud, in a little, crackling, flickering murmur, which reminded Sophie rather of the way she had talked to her stick when she walked here, and it blazed while it thought with such a glad and powerful roaring that she dozed again. […] The demon at length fell to singing a gentle, flickering little song. It was not in any language Sophie knew—or she thought not, until she distinctly heard the word "saucepan" in it several times—and it was very sleepy-sounding. Sophie fell into a deep sleep, with a slight suspicion that she was being bewitched now, as well as beguiled, but it did not bother her particularly. She would be free of the spell soon … (3.60)
We don't actually see Calcifer doing magic that often. This is the only time that we can think of where he performs magic on a specific person without their knowledge who isn't the Witch of the Waste. Why do you think that Calcifer decides to soothe Sophie to sleep at this point? Why do you think Sophie's suspicion that Calcifer is using on magic her does "not bother her particularly"?
Quote #3
[Sophie] stood for a moment looking out at a slowly moving view of the hills, watching heather slide past underneath the door, feeling the wind blow her wispy hair, and listening to the rumble and grind of the big black stones as the castle moved. Then she shut the door and went to the window. And there was the seaport town again. It was no picture. A woman had opened a door opposite and was sweeping dust into the street. Behind that house a grayish canvas sail was going up a mast in brisk jerks, disturbing a flock of seagulls into flying round and round against the glimmering sea. (4.11)
It makes sense given the title of the book that most of the visible magic in Howl's Moving Castle has to do with, well, the castle itself. Sophie starts to adjust her ideas about the place of magic in regular life when she gets used to the fact that the doors to the castle don't match up with the windows and that she has to bully the fire demon in the fireplace to let her cook hot meals. These domestic pieces of magic seem soothing to Sophie, and they pave the way to her eventual acceptance of the fact that she also has a strong magic gift.