“I don't think it's much use your looking for the brains: a creature who twice walked into a lions den can't have got any.”

“You don't go walking into the proverbial lion's den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.”

“Look at my glasses. I can't even see that there are any stars in the sky without them, but it's not the glasses that are doing the seeing, it's me, Madeleine. I don't think Father's eyes are seeing now, but he is. And maybe his brain isn't thinking, but a brain's just something to think through, the way my glasses are something to see through.”

“I am in the lion's den, surrounded by a circus of liquor. I used to be the ringleader.”

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”

“Then I say, "Let's go and brush our teeth." So Lola says, "But Charlie, I can't brush my teeth because somebody is using my tooth." "But who would use your toothbrush?" I ask. Lola says "I think that lion. I saw a lion with my toothbrush and now he's brushing his teeth with it." "But it isn't this your toothbrush Lola?" "Oh," says Lola, "he must be using yours.”