“And now I wish I hadn’t been civil, because he says he shall not despair! He is as stupid as Endymion!”“No, no!” said Alverstoke soothingly. “Nobody could be as stupid as Endymion!”

“Nobody likes cravens,” he said uncomfortably. “I wish we hadn’t helped him. What if they think we’re craven too?”"You're too stupid to be craven,” Pyp told him. “I am not,” Grenn said. “Yes you are. If a bear attacked you in the woods, you’d be too stupid to run away.” “I would not,” Grenn insisted. “I’d run away faster than you.” He stopped suddenly, scowling when he saw Pyp’s grin and realized what he’d just said.”

“Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he wished to and because he was very clever and a genius”

“He had told her he wasn’t Prince Charming, but what he hadn’t said, was he wished he could be.”

“Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.”

“There were a lot of things he could say. "Son of a bitch!" would have been a good one. Or he could say, "Welcome to civilization!" He could have said, "Laugh this one off!" He might have said, "Fetch!" But he didn’t, because if he had said any of those things then he’d have known that what he had just done was murder.”