“He set fire to some potatoes, then cooked some undelivered post in the embers." - Dad"Did he now? What a strange fellow. I would have done it the other way around." - Stafford”

“Much has happened since last we met, Bartimaeus," he went on. "Do you remember how we parted?""No." I did."You set light to me, old friend. Struck a match and left me burning in a copse."The crow shifted uneasily beneath the cleaver."That's a gesture of endearment in some cultures. Some hug, some kiss, some set each other on fire in small patches of woodland...”

“And now you see why some facts, some pieces of knowledge, have to be snuffed out as soon as they form. Curiosity would blow across such embers and burn this silo to the ground.”

“What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.”

“I’m older now than my dad was when he was my age. Wait, that’s not right. That’s not my dad at all, that’s just some stranger hanging around in my memory.
”

“I got the feeling Poseidon really didn't know what to think of me. He didn't know whether he was happy to have me as a son or not. In a strange way, I was glad that Poseidon was so distant. If he'd tried to apologize, or told me he love me, or even smiled. it would've felt fake. Like human dad, making some lame excuse for not being around. I could live with that. After all, I wasn't sure about him yet, either.”