“Since at least the Sixth Century all librarians have received extensive combat training and are lethal with even the common toothpick.”

“Every Librarian is a highly trained agent. An expert in intelligence, counterintelligence, Boolean searching, and hand-to-hand combat.”

“If you have to go up unarmed against an angry T rex with a four-digit IQ, it can't hurt to have a trained combat specialist at your side. At the very least, she might be able to fashion a pointy stick from the branch of some convenient tree.”

“The 'polymath' had already died out by the close of the eighteenth century, and in the following century intensive education replaced extensive, so that by the end of it the specialist had evolved. The consequence is that today everyone is a mere technician, even the artist...”

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.”

“You know, at least Gabriel showed up announced like a gentleman. He even told Mila that she looked beautiful. You and your toothpick just show up, scaring me half to death.”