“I should recommend...keeping...a small memorandum-book in the breast-pocket, with its well-cut sheathed pencil, ready for notes on passing opportunities, but never being without this.”

“And, most important of all," added the Mathemagician, "here is your own magic staff. Use it well and there is nothing it cannot do for you."He placed in Milo's breast pocket a small gleaming pencil which, except for the size, was much like his own.”

“A lecture has been well described as the process whereby the notes of the teacher become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either.”

“I can't pass a bookstore without slipping inside, looking for the next book that will burn my hand when I touch its jacket, or hand me over a promissory note of such immense power that it contains the formula that will change everything about me.”

“Sticklers never read a book without a pencil at hand, to correct the typographical errors. In short, we are unattractive know-all obsessives who get things out of proportion and are in continual peril of being disowned by our exasperated families.”

“So if you are the big tree, we are the small axe. Ready to cut you down, to cut you down.”