“Fifteen years was a long time to be stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mind-boggingly dull as Earth.”

“Hell is not hot, or cold. Nor is it deep below ground, or somewhere in the sky. Instead it is a place on Earth filled with sucking bogs, disfiguring diseases and millions of tiny flesh-eating creatures.Hell is a jungle, and it is monstrously green.”

“Alice of Wonderland was stranded on Earth.”

“A thousand years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, they knew the Earth was flat. Fifteen minutes ago, you knew we humans were alone on it. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.”

“I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915.”

“There is something about the fifteen-year-old mind -- a kind of skin or veil or walling off from feelings not your own.”