“I hate this Gladiator shit," Sabin muttered."Yes, well, where do you think the Romans learned from?"Sabin sputtered for a minute. "You're trying to tell me Harpies are responsible for this? That the Romans learned from them?""I must try only if you are lacking intelligence.”

“Sophie glanced from me to Sabine, then back, scowling. "I'm not scared of her. I can handle myself." "Yeah, and hissing kittens think they're badass too," Sabine said.”

“The common approach is, metaphorically speaking, to go out onto the sidewalk and to pick up all the banana skins, so that no one slips. Me, I go down early in the morning and drop more banana skins. People say, ‘Well, why would you be doing that?’ And I tell them, ‘Teaching is not about trying to prevent people from falling down, it’s about trying to get them to use their eyes.’ If you take the banana skins away, you’re saying that life is banana-skin free. Well, it is not. Life is full of banana skins.I try to teach people to use their eyes, to look where they’re stepping. It’s my responsibility to respect people, to help them learn the lessons life teaches. When you slip on a banana skin and fall down, discuss what happened and learn from it. I think that it is actually unwise to get in between people and what life is trying to teach them, but we all have a responsibility for each other.”

“Learning science is not just learning facts, or even procedures. Science is a discourse-a way of conversing-with an epistemological frame:how to we know? Why do we think so?And I tell that that, yes, you can do this by yourself-have a conversation-but you have to learn to do it first. And its' much easier to learn to do it with a peer rather than an instructor. With an instructor you expect them to "know" the answer and, even if they won't give it to you directly, you expect them to be right. In a science dialog none of you "know" what's right. You're all trying to figure it out.”

“In an incredulous tone, he said, "You don't know the meaning of virtue!" "Of course I do-it means your thong must be white." (Sabine)”

“I've never understood it. That is always the first thing someone asks: Where are you from. Not 'What do you like?' or 'What do you believe?' or even 'What is your mother like?' which all have more bearing on the person I am. And if I don't tell them where I'm from, they try to guess.... It drives them mad, as if to know me they need to know where I am from.”